REBEL BRAG 



ySi. 



BRITISH BLUSTER 



A RECORD OP 

UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES, BAFFLED SCHEMES, AND DIS- 
APPOINTED HOPES, WITH ECHOES OF VERY IN- 
SIGNIFICANT THUNDER. VERY PLEASANT 
TO READ AND INSTRUCTIVE TO 
ALL WKO ARE CAPABLE OF 
LEARNING. 



By owls-glass 



NEW YORK: 
THE AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the yaar 1865, by 

THE AMERICAN NEAVS ^COMPANY, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District ol New York. 






PREFATORY NOTE. 

It must not be thought that the following pages are the 
fruit of a search through the British journals for articles 
upon our late civil war. Life is too short for such an em- 
ployment of time without prospect of much greater bene- 
fit, public and private, than that task could accomplish, 
however effectually performed. The articles, extracts 
from which are here reprinted were, with many others, 
cut out and laid aside in the course of the current peru- 
sal of British journals during the war, as interesting utter- 
ances of opinion and feeling, to which there would 
probably arise some occasion for reference. This selection 
from and arrangement of these articles is offered as a 
curious study of the attitude, temper, and purposes of the 
largest and most influential part of a great and enlight- 
ened nation in regard to one of the most important po- 
litical movements of modern times. It is published, as 
its last sentences show, wi'th no intention of putting a 
rougher edge upon the natural exasperation caused by the 
tone of the undeniably able and dextrous writers and 
politicians, who, to please the public for whom they wrote 



VI PREFATOKYNOTE. 

and spoke, opposed, ridiculed, and contemned our people 
and our government during the tremendous struggle for 
the worthy and honorable existence of our country. It 
would not be very easy for us to forget these efforts of 
our inimical kinsfolk, or indeed desirable that we should 
lose sight of so instructive a warning, but it will be very 
easy for us to forgive them. Indeed, as after 3776, and 
1812, it will be much easier for us to forgive them their 
ill-treatment than for them to forgive us our success. 
But it may be well for us to cast one reflective glance upon 
this subject as we pass on to the great work before us^ 
thinking the while of our country (in the words of Mr. 
Lowell's Ode in commemoration of the Living and Dead 
Soldiers of Harvard C7>iiver5i7i/, which reaches the pres- 
ent writer opportunely just as these pages are going to 
press,) 

' ' No challenge sends she to the elder world 
That looked askance and hated ; a light scorn 
Plays on her mouth as round her mighty knees 
She calls her children back, and waits the morn 
Of nobler day, enthroned between her subject seas." 



EEBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 



INTRODUCTION. 



When the people of the late Slave States were be- 
trayed and incited by a selfish and ambitious oligarchy 
into undertaking the destruction of our Republic, they 
appealed directly to the interests, the fears and the preju- 
dices of the governing classes of Great Britain for coun- 
tenance and aid in their rebellion. Consequently, the 
Government and the .people of the Free States looked 
with interest to see what attitude would be assumed in 
regard to the coming contest by that part of the British 
people which exercised a controlling influence upon the 
British Government and the British press. They knew 
that these people — to a certain degree at least, and in a 
certain way — hated slavery, and had been committed for 
a generation to a strong anti-slavery policy. The slave- 
holders of our Southern States having seceded, by their 
own admission, solely on account of the announced de- 
termination of the party coming into power to resist the 
extension of slavery into the unorganized national ter- 
ritory, and having declared by the mouth of the Vice 
President of their Confederacy that they meant to found 
their government upon slavery as its corner stone, it 
might have been reasonably expected that the moral 
weight of the British people would be thrown entirely 
with the Government of the United States and against 
the slaveholding insurgents. Perfect neutrality between 



8 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

tlie contending parties was of course looked for; — a 
neutrality as absolute as that of our government and 
people in all the various wars in which Great Britian has ^ 
engaged during the present century, or as that which we 
should have observed had the people in England -north 
of the Humber revolted, and attempted to set up a new 
government because they had been worsted in an elec- 
tion by the result of which they feared that some sup- 
posable interest of theirs had been imperilled. Not a 
neutrality which would begin by reducing a government 
with v.diich we had long-standing treaties to the level of 
insurgents only a month or two in arms who were seeking 
to destroy it ; thus insulting it and 'aiding them ; but a 
real neutrality, which, neither elevating the other nor de- 
grading jbhe other, would aid neithei^and do — just noth- 
ing. What was expected was merely that such possible 
moral influence as the British -Government and people 
could exert, should be ex:erted in fa^or of an established 
constitutional government, the destruction of which was 
attempted by the enemies of freedom. 

There were other reasons than those just mentioned, 
which seemed to warrant such expectations. The visit 
of the Prince of Wales to the United States had been 
eagerly seized as a fitting opportunity for a notably 
hearty and general demonstration of national good will 
to the mother-country, of which he was regarded as the 
representative ; and this demonstration had not only 
been welcomed by the principal organs of British public 
opinion, but had been made the occasion of a candid 
confession that during previous years British authors, 
travelers and journalists, had indulged themselves in irri- 
tating misrepresentation and an unbecoming and in- 
sulting tone toward the people of this country. The 
London Times of N'ovember 16th, 1860, commenting in 
its leading columns upon the reception given in New York 
to the heir-apparent of the British throne, said, with a 
touch of frankness and generosity rare, upon this subject : 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

The work to be done here was one beyond the power of eith- 
er soldier or di})loniatist. A new relation had to be established 
between two of the greatest Empires in the world, members of the 
same family, heirs of the same grand traditions, the same histori- 
cal names, the same language, religion, and laws. For near a cen- 
tury the guli of a bloody schism has gaped between them, and the 
triumph of success on the one side has been met with the sneers of 
disappointed dominion on the other. They have forgotten in the 
petty resentments of the hour tliat we are their elder brothers and 
fathers, and we have forgotten that they are but our young kins- 
men, and that what is amiss in them must come of our breeding. 
Every tourist hasJiad his fling at their freedom of manners, their 
laxity of opinion, and the stern reaction of their Puritan theology. 
Men who could but know but little of their own country, and its 
still undigested heptarchy of dialects and manners, have made 
their sport of phrases and nsages to be found in full vogue within 
six hours of this metropolis. . . . He (the Prince of Wales,) has 
expressed to America the true sentiment of every British heart to 
that great cognate nation. There is none in which we are so in- 
terested, none the success and glory of which we hear with such 
unmixed satisfaction, none with v/hich we so identify ourselves. 
The Prince of Wales, while showing the feelings of a true born 
Englishman, has elicited the feelings of every true born American, 
and so brought the two face to face and made them feel that they 
are brothers. 

Very charming this, if it had only lasted ; but how 
quickly was it aH to change ! 

It was also reiuembered that the only discourtesy the 
Prince met with here was shown him in a slave State, 
and that he turned away from Richmond shaking, in a 
princely fashion, its dust from his princely feet. 

Again, it could not be forgotten that when Great 
Britain appeared before the world in the Crimean war 
as th^ antagonist of the great Muscovite empire which, 
however foreign its domestic feeling to the sympathies of 
the people of the Free States, had still that claim upon our 
regard which is given by a constant attitude of consider- 
ation and respect, by which it was distinguished from 
its opponents, the mass of our people had manifested a 
lively interest in the success of the arms of the allies one 
of whom represented our blood and, in a greater measure 
than any other, our principles of government, and the 



to 



EEBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 



other a people with which we had ourselves been in 
former years on terms of close alliance. These are not 
after thoughts. In the first year of the war these con- 
siderations were thus substantially set forth in the special 
correspondence of one of the principal journals of the 
United States — the New York Times. 

When Great Britian and France went to war eight years ago 
with Russia, in order to check that senii-civihzed power in its ca- 
reer of conquest, the almost universal sentiment in that por- 
tion of this country which is now loyal to the Union was in cor- 
dial sympathy with the former, and their earnest prayers went up 
for the overthrow of the armies of the Muscovite despot. There 
were a few exceptions to this general unanimity, but I can now 
remember only the Tribune as occupying that position, and I be- 
lieve that its peculiar, not to say eccentric views, met withhttle sym- 
pathy among Northern men.* At the South, however, the senti- 

* The sympathy which we felt for these brave, patient British soldiers 
found fitting utterance in these lines, wi-itten by one of our most widely 
known authors, upon a touching incident in the siege of Sevastopol. 

SONGS OF THE CAMP. 

BY BAYARD TAYLOR, 

Air,— The girls I left behind me. 

*• Give us a song ! " the soldiers cried, 
The outer trenches guarding, 
When the heated gun of the camp allied 
Grew weary of bombarding. 

The dark Redan, in silent scoflF, 

Lay, grim and threatening, under, 
And the tawny mouth of the Malakofi 

No longer belched its thunder. 

There was a pause. The guardman said 
" We storm the forts to-morrow; 
Sing while we may, another day 
Will bring enough of sorrow." 

They lay along the battery's side 

Below the smoking cannon — 
Brave hearts from Severn and from Clyde, 

And from the banks of Shannon. 

They sang of love and not of fime — 

Forgot was Britain's glory. 
Each heart recalled a different name, 

But all sang — " Annie Laurie." 



INTRODUCTION. 11 



ment was almost as universally in favor of the barbaric despotism 
which then tolerated Slavery, and this circumstance, in fact, con- 
stituted the real bond of sympathy. The organ of Mr. Pierce's 
administration — the Washington Union — took strong ground in 
favor of the Russian cause in the very outset of the contest. 
That paper was then edited nominally by an old soldier from Ten- 
nessee, General Armstrong, but really by Roger A. Pryor, a 
fire-eating Virginian. The course of the organ, in siding with 
Russia, was deemed extraordinary, and gave such offence to 
Northern sentiment that it was found necessary to get rid of the 
impracticable sympathizer with Russian despotism, and he was 
disposed of by being appointed as Minister or Consul to Greece. 
But the slavery controversy waxed warmer every day, and the ex- 
actions of the Southern democracy upon its Northern allies grew 
apace, until not only the official organ, but the whole Southern 
and a portion of the Northern Democratic press, took ground in 
favor of Russia as the power of kindred principles which fought 
for the spread of despotism and slavery. All sorts of specious 
charges were urged against Great Britain and France, based on 
affected fears of their ambitious designs, but the real moving 
cause, as everybody knew, was the affinity which exists between 
the propagandists of black slavery, and what they regarded as the 
propagandists of white slavery. 

Again, when four years ago, Great Britain was threatened with 
the loss of her most considerable possession, the fruit of a centu- 
ry of wars and intrigues, the American heart — or I should say 

Voice after voice caught up the song, 

Until its tender passion 
Rose like an anthem, rich and strong — 

Their battle eve confession. 

Dear girl — her name he dai'ed not speak — 

Yet, as the song grew louder, 
Something upon the soldier's cheek 

Wa'shed off the stains of powder. 

Beyond the darkening ocean burned 

The bloody sunset's embers, 
While the Crimean valleys learned 

How English love remembers. 

And Irish Nora's eyes are dim 

For a singer, dumb and gory ! 
And English Mary mourns for him 

Who sang of " Annie Laurie." 

Ah ! soldiers, to your honored rest 

Your truth and valor bearing : 
The bravest are the tenderest — 
The loving are the daring ! 



12 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

rather, the l>rorthern, and now loyal American heart — went forth 
in sympathy with their kinsmen. ' We could not justify the means 
resorted to by the Government of Great Britain in acquiring pos- 
session of India, nor the administration which had been accorded 
to that barbarous people, but it was generally felt that the East 
Indians, a semi-barbarous people, accustomed for ages to the mis- 
rule of local and warring despots, and to the benumbing influence 
of frightful superstitions, were better off, and in a more hopeful 
way of progress under British rule than under that of their native 
despots. This consideration, coupled with our kind wishes for the 
people from whom we sprung, caused a general sympathy with 
the British nation, and a general rejoicing at the suppression of 
the rebellion. The South, on the contrary, manifested a deal of 
S}Tnpathy with the Sepoys. Great Britian had abolished slavery 
in the West Indies ; she contained Exeter Hall, and her priests and 
nobles feasted and honored the authoress of tfnde Toni's Cabin^ 
and refused to surrender fugitive slaves. These were reasons 
sufficient to turn the sympathies of all Pro-slavery men, North 
and South, in favor of the Sepoys.* 

So much for the past. At length the party in this country with 
which all Britain professed to sympathize — the party of freedom 
and justice, of civilization and humanity, of peace with Great 
Britain and all the world — the party hostile to slavery extension, 
the slave-trade and fillibusterin^ — triumphed in an election. It 
installed a President of its choice, and had the control of one 
branch of Congress. But the champions of the slave-trade, of 
slavery extension and of fillibustering, revolt. They -will not sub- 
mit to a " Black Republican " president, though fairly elected, 
and they plunder the arsenals and armories of the government lo- 
cated among them, in order to arm their fellow-citizens for the de- 
struction of the Union. What does slavery-hating England do in 
this crisis of the American Government? Does she reciprocate 
our kind sympathies, bestowed during the Russian and Sepoy 
wars .5^ Does she frown indignantly upon the attempt to buUd 



* In the Jltlantic Monthly Oliver Wendell Holmes thus quaintly ex- 
presses our feeling upon this subject : 

" Who was that pei'son that was so absurd some time since for say- 
ing that in the conflict of two races our sympathies naturally go with 
the higher ? No matter who he was. Now look what is going on in 
India, — a white, superior ' Caucasian ' race against a dark skinned 
but still inferior ' Caucasian' race, — and where are English and 
American sympathies ? We can't stop to settle all the doubtful ques- 
tions The India mail brings stories of women and children 

outraged and murdered. The royal stronghold is in the hands of the 
babe-killers. England takes down the map of the world which she has 
girdled with empire, and makes a correction, thus ". BELII I-, dele. The 
civihzed world says, Amen." 

The British people seemed to set at naught that which Taylor and 
Holmes expressed. Well, if they are content, so are we. 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

up a great Confedaracy upon the basis of a revival of the slave- 
trade, the extension of slavery by fillibustering, and the perpetra- 
tion of negro bondage ? Yes ! she does for a while affect these 
virtues. She does mention a little, through her Times and other 
journals, her Russells and Pahnerstons, about the horrors of 
slavery and the beauties of freedom; but she, at the same time, 
perlidiously keeps one ear open to the traitors, and tells tliein, sab 
rosa, to persevere for a few months, until Great Britain will feel 
justified in acknowledging their independence. This is brieily and 
substantially the history of Britisli treatment of the American re- 
belhon. It has been a history of hy})Ocrisy and duplicity — of* 
affected concern for the interests of freedom and humanity, but 
of real concern for the interests of cotton-spinning and commerce. 
The overthrow of the slaveholding rebellion will place motlier 
England in a most unenviable attitude. She will have forfeited 
for a generation the confidence and respect of tlie American peo- 
ple and government, and have steeped herself in the guilt of a 
conspiracy to overthrow a free Constitution, in order to set up 
one whose " being, end and aim " is the extension and perpetua- 
tion of slavery and the slave-trade . This generation must pass 
away before this crime against humanity can be forgotten. 



As late as March 2d, 1861, Ptinch^ which is always on 
the side of freedom and constitutional government 
when it is not its interest to be on that of slavery and 
despotism — taking the natural and traditional British 
view of slavery and shive holding, and of resistance to 
lawful authority under a free government, spoke as fol- 
lows on occasion of one step in the secession movement : 

We see that Louisiana has seceded from the American Union in 
a manner equally disgusting and ridiculous. Despatches fro in 
Baton Rouge contain the particulars of this absurb proceeding. 
The debate in the Convention on the question of secession having 
closed, we are told, a vote was ordered, and : — 

" The Galleries and lobbies were intensely crowded, and a 
death-like silence prevailed. On the call of the roll, many mem- 
bers were in tears." 

Who were the weepers ? A numerous minority in the Louisiana 
Convention, bewailing the folly which the majority was about to 
perpetrate ? Not so ; for the vote having been* announced, the 
Ayes turned out to be 113, and the Nays 17. The weeping mem- 
bers were therefore Secessionists — slave-owners, slave-drivers — and 
about what then were these ruffians blubbering? We can only 
suppose either that their tears were those of maudlin mournfulness, 
or drunkenness, or proceeded from the fountain of doleful hypocrisy. 



14 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER 

That the latter was the source of these crocodiles' or alligators' 
tears, is very decidedly indicated by what follows : — 

'* Capt. Allen then entered the Convention with a Pelican flag, 
accompanied by Governor Moore and staff, and put the flag in 
the hands of the President, amid tremendous excitement. 

" A solemn prayer was then offered, and a hundred guns fired." 

Having agreed in an act of treason towards their common 
country, in pursuance of a brutal determination to persist in op- 
pressing their fellow-men ; having renounced their allegiance to 
►the American Union, to the intent of persevering in the violation 
of their duty towards their neighbour, these snivelling professors 
of a rascally piety go down on their knees and pray. Hideous 
devotion ! Praying and weeping as they were, surely every drop 
that trickled from their turned-up eyes down their snuffling noses, 
must have looked black in the hght of Heaven. Angehc chemis- 
try has perhaps turned those tears to jet, and keeps them for a 
curiosity. Unpleasant humbugs ! The odour of their sanctimony 
grievously offends the moral nose. 

The finishing touch to the character of these brutes is supplied 
by the following account of an atrocity narrated in a despatch 
dated at Washington : — 

' ' Information was received by the Government this morning, 
from the Collector at New Orleans, stating that the barracks about 
two miles below New Orleans, now occupied as a Marine Hospital, 
were taken possession of on the 11th instant by Captain Brad- 
ford, of the State Infantry, in the name of the State of Louisiana. 
There were 216 invalids and convalescent patients in the hospital 
at the time it was seized. The collector of customs was required 
to inunediately remove the patients who were convalescent, and 
those who were confined to their beds, as soon as practicable. 
This action is regarded by the Government as most outrageous 
and inhuman." 

The hospital was seized,* and the patients were turned out of 
it in order that it might be occupied as a baryick by the state 
troops of Louisiana, levied on behalf of slavery and rebellion. 
Secretary Dix denounces this deed as "an act of outrageous 
barbarity, disgraceful to any age or country." But what are the 
savage secessionist slave-owners of Louisiana but barbarians ? 



"Ruffians," "maudlin mournfulness or doleful hypoc- 
risy," " crocodiles' tears," " an act of treason toward their 
common country in pursuance of a brutal determination 
to persist in opj^ressing their fellow-men," "snivelling 
professors of a rascally piety," "hideous devotion," 
"snuffling noses," "unpleasant humbugs," "brutes," 
"barbarians." What that was ever said by the coarsest 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

and most indiscreet of loyal an ti-slavery journals approach- 
ed -P^^>^c/i'5 vituperation of the insurgent slave-holders? 
But there is no more sensitive meter of British public feel- 
ing than this mercurial mountebank, and we shall hereafter' 
see how quietly he adapted himself to the cliange of 
moral atmosphere round him, wlien John Bull got the idea 
in his head that at last there was a chance for the des- 
truction of the Great Republic. 

That at first the organs of J^ritish public opinion took 
the right position in reference to the rebellion, and did not 
abandon it until they were tempted by the reflection, 
which came with time and in consequence of the sugges- 
tion of rebel emissaries, that if encouraged and nursed,, 
the rebellion might divide tlie power of the United States, 
will be brought to mind by tlie following extracts from the 
London Tunes and Saturday Memew. * 

We are glad to think that the march of slavery and the domi- 
neering tone which its advocates were beginning to assume have at 
length been arrested and silenced. We rejoice that a vast com- 
munity of our own race has at length given an authoritative expres- 
sion to sentiments which are entertained by every one in this coun- 
try.— Ti/we^, Nov. 21, 18G0. 

Should South Carolina, Georgia and the adjacent states, sep- 
arate themselves permanently from the Federation, constituting 
themselves a new nation, with their own army, navy, foreign rep- 
resentatives, and all the appanage of independence, then the whole 
serins of American politicians will have been in the wrong, and 
this journal, which has always declared such an event to he impos- 
sible, will have been in the wrong with them. — Times, Nov. 26, 
1860. 

Of one thing the Democrats may well be assured — that the 
character and prestige of the United States in the eyes of Europe 
depend on their Federal Union . . . Let there be no mistake 
as to English public opinion on this subject. If we have paid a 
sincere homage to the rising greatness of America, it has not been 
to that which the Southerners are so anxious to conserve, but to that 
which they are striving to destroy. All that is noble and venerable 
in the United States is associated with the Federal Constitution. 
It is not the demonstration of Southern ruffianism in Congress, 
or the fiUibustering aggression of the South, — from Mexican aggres- 
sion down to the Fugitive Slave Law or the Dred Scott decision, or 
the Kansas-Nebraska Act — it is not these or any other triumph of 



16 • REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

Democratic insolence during their ascendency of half a century 
that has commanded the sympathy and admiration of Europe. . . 
But if this rough sparring [the threats of secession] should by any 
chance be carried too far, and the threat uttered in jest or earnest 
should be repeated in earnest, and lead to bloodshed, it is some 
comfort that the aggressor will not be the strong party. Mr. Lin- 
coln will in that case command a majority in Congress, and will 
carry with him the support of all those who, however tolerant of 
slavery, will not acquiesce in its becoming the basis of an illegal 
and hostile Confederacy. — Times, Nov, 29, 1860. 

It is evident, in short, that the dissolution of the United States, 
so far from being hailed as a profitable transaction, will be lament- 
ed in this country as the premature failure of a great experiment, 
and as a probable source of grave diplomatic embarrassment. — 
Saturday Review, Dec. 29, 18G0. 

It is in truth absolutely certain that any policy will miscarry, 
which assumes that England can be coaxed or bribed into a con- 
nivance at the extension of slavery. — Saturday Bevieio, Dec. 29, 
1860. 

This was the attitude in the early stages of the rebel- 
lion, of that part of the British people which has a voice 
in public affairs. "What was that of the secessionists 
themselves ? We all remember the boast of Mr. Pope 
Walker, the insurgent " Secretary of War " at Montgom- 
ery, the day of the surrender of Fort Sumter, — " No 
man can tell where the war commenced this day will 
end ; but I will prophesy that the flag which now flaunts 
the breeze here, will float over the dome of their old 
capitol at Washington, before the first of May. Let 
them try Southern chivalry, and test the extent of South- 
ern resources, and it may float eventually over Faneuil 
Hall itself." But we have more authoritative statements 
of higher expectations and more definite purposes than 
these. Mr. Jefierson Davis, speaking at Stevenson, Ala- 
bama, in February, 1861, thus announced the speedily 
coming triumph of the rebellion, and the means by which 
it was to be accomplished. 

" Your border states will gladly come into the Southern Confed- 
eracy witliin sixty days, as we will be your only friends. Eng- 



INTRODUCTION. 17 

land will recognise us, and a glorious future is before us, the grass 
will grow in Northern cities, where the pavements have been worn 
by the tread of commerce. We will carry ivar where it is easy to 
advance — lohere food for the sword and the torch await the armies in 
the densely popidated, cities ; and though the enemy may come and 
spoil our crops we can raise them as before ; while they cannot 
rear the cities which it took years of industry and millions of 
money to build." 

So much from the President of the Confederate States 
of America. The leading journal of this " Confederacy" 
thus discoursed and prophesied : 

It is a good maxim " not to quarrel with one's bread and but- 
ter," and one which the North icill remember to its sorrow long ere 
its war upon the South is ended. It has no idea yet of the extent 
of its dependence upon the South, and upon slaveliolding coun- 
tries south of us. Cotton is king, but not the only king. Sugar, 
molasses, rice, tobacco and many other southern products, are kings 
and petty princes. The North cannot subsist ivithoid them, yet she 
is aljout to excite a system of privateering that will cut up her 
commerce, and if it does not starve her, villi force her to live upon 
hcdf cdlowance. She can't live on leather long, and neither her 
shoes or other manufactures will find a market after war is fully en- 
tered into. 

******* 

The north-eastern states of America are situated, as regards trade 
and subsistence, just as are western and southern Europe. Their 
soil, in its present impoverished condition, could not he made to 
produce food and clothing to sustain their population. They might 
live without cotton, or tea, or coffee, or rice, or sugar, or spices, 
molasses, or tobacco, if they had sufficient breadth of soil on which 
to produce substitutes for these articles ; but this they have not. 
They have begun to blockade the whole southern coast. // they 
succeed, the South may nevertheless live as comfortably and luxuri- 
ously within itself as if it enjoyed the trade and commerce of the 

world. 

******* 

A ten years' successful blockade of the north-eastern states 
(we mean an exclusion from the markets of the world) would 
starve one half of their poi)ulation and impoverish the other half. 
Northern wealth is a very ticklish concern. Without foreign trade 
it would take to itself wings and fly off; or, if it remained at 
home, would cease to have any value. Without trade, her fac- 
tories, her ships, her stores, her cities and her moneyed capital, 
would be valueless — would cease to constitute wealth. Her pov- 
eHy is indigenous — her riches cosmopolitan. If she continues to 
war upon the South, her moneyed capital and her capital employed 



18 EEBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

in trade and manufactures will seek investment in other countries. 
Then she will have nothing but lier sterile soil and her millions of 
paupers. War can do us no serious injury, hid, tvill be sure to niin 
her. The slave population of the South can support in comfort 
four times as many people as we have within our confines. We 
can keep a million of men under arms and never suffer for want of 
comfortable food and clothing. Slaveholding begets and fosters the 
war spirit. After a while the master race begins to think its whole 
business is to fight, whilst the inferior I'ace does the labor. This is 
a division of labor which we do not altogether admire and approve ; 
but it is well for us and for our enemies to know that it is not au 
unnatural one, nor has it been an unusual one. Among the most 
polished and civilized nations of antiquity this was the normal and 
approved condition of things. 

The North will be at a loss to select its soldiery. Her factory 
hands and her farmers know little about guns, and would take a 
long time to learn to stand fire, however expert they be at carrying 
Wide Awake lanterns. Hannibal did once whip a Roman army, 
by tying fodder to the tails and horns of a drove of oxen, setting 
fire to the fodder and driving the oxen in among the Romans. We 
doubt very much lohether the Wide Awakes could be driven by tlieir 
officers in among our Southern troops, and ice know they loill never 
lead them in. 

Then, again, if the Northern factor}^ hands and farmers are car- 
ried to the wars, who will produce food and clothing ? War ivill 
disorganize the industry of the North ; it can have little effect upon 
ours. — Richmond Examiner, April 16th, 18G1. 

With the course of events during the war fresh in our 
memories, and the present condition of the revolted states 
before our eyes, it is almost impossible to believe that men 
having a moderate degree of that sense which is common 
to mankind, could deliberately utter such boastful non- 
sense. But the judgment of these men had been self- 
perverted for a generation by the endeavor to maintain 
the justice of an institution at variance with the spirit 
of civilization and Christianity; and they were given 
over to delusions. Witness this testimony of a writer, 
Mr. Russell, whose testimony as to matters of fact is as 
good as can be offered : 

THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 

Nothing I could say can be worth one fact which has forced 
itself upon my mind in reference to the sentiments which prevail 
among the gentlemen of this State. I have been among them for 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

several days. I have visked their plantations, I have conversed 
with them freely and fully, and I have enjoyed that frank, cour- 
teous, and graceful intercourse which constitutes an irresistible 
charm of their society. From all quarters has come to my ears 
the echoes of the same voice ; it may be feigned, but there is no 
discord in the note, and it sounds in wonderful strengtii and mo- 
notony all over the country. Shades of George III., of JSTorth, 
of Johnson, of all who contended against the great rebellion 
which tore these colonies from England, can yon hear the chorus 
which rings through the State of Marion, Sumpter, and Pinckney, 
and not clap your ghostly hands in triumph ? That voice says 
'■'' If we could only get one of the Royal race of England to rule 
over us, we should he content.'''' Let there he no misconception on 
this point. That sentiment, varied in a hundred ways, has heen re- 
peated to me over and over again. There is a general admission 
that the means to such an end are wanting, and that the desire 
cannot be gratified. But the admiration for monarchical institu- 
tions on the English model, for privileged classes, and for a land- 
ed aristocracy and gentry, is undisguised and apparently genuine. 
With the pride of having achieved their independence is mingled 
in the South Carolinians' heart a strange regret at the result and 
consequences, and many are they who " would go back to- 
morrow if we could." — Special Correspondence of the London 
Times, April 30, 1861. 

But between the writing of the above paragraph and 
that which follows, Mr. Russel had gone from South Car- 
olina to Georgia. The uprising at the North, in response 
to the President's proclamation, had caused some of the 
Southern people to open their eyes — at least with aston- 
ishment. The consequence was a change of tone, which 
the British correspondent thus records : 

May day was so well kept yesterday that the exhausted editors 
cannot " bring out" their papers, and consequently there is no 
news; but there is, nevertheless, much to be said concerning 
" Our President's " message, and there is a suddenness of admi- 
ration for pacific tendencies which can with difficulty be account- 
ed for, unless the news from the North these last few days 
has something to do with it. Not a word noio ahout an instant 
march on Washington ! No more threats to seize on Faneuil Sail ! 
The Georgians are by no means so keen as the Carolinians on 
their border — nay, they are not so belligerent to-day as they 
were a week ago. Mr. Jefferson Davis' message is praised for 
its " moderation," and for other qualities which were by no means 
in such favor while the Sumter fever was at its height. Men look 
grave and talk about the interference of England and France, 



20 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

which *' cannot allow this thing to go onW' But the change which 
has come over them is mimistakable, and tliM best men begin to look 
grave. As for me, I must prepare to open my lines of retreat — 
my communications are in clanger. — Sjjecial Correspondence of the 
London Times, May 2, 1861. 

While the Secessionists were bragging and threatening 
as we have seen, what was the tone of the people of the 
loyal States ? It was as unlike as their principles were, 
to that of the insurgent slave-holders. A careful search 
through tlie leading newspapers published north of the 
Potomac discovers an earnest but somewhat sabdued 
assertion of faith in the Republic, and devotion to its 
principles and its flag, but no boast of prowess, no 
blatant prediction of swift and triumphant success. From 
this as from every statement creditable to the press of the 
United States, there must of course be excepted one no- 
torious i3aper, which has gained its notoriety only by pan- 
dering to the worst tastes and passions of the ignorant 
foreign population of New York, and the prurient curiosi- 
ty of its native inhabitants, and which, having been a 
supporter of the seceders even after the bombardment of 
Sumter, changed face between two days, and, always a 
braggart, endeavored to beget confidence in its new-born 
loyalty by its extravagant boastfulness. But there is 
more than this negative evidence of the m'oderate pre- 
tensions of the loyal people amid all their confidence and 
devotion. The New York Times^ with the approval of 
the whole community, Irishmen and rowdies excepted, thus 
rebuked the correspondent of a leading London paper 
for a pretentious and boastful tone which was felt to be 
unbecoming and regarded as misrepresenting the country : 

ZEAL WITHOUT DISCRETION. 

The London Daily News has distinguished itself from the mass 
of English newspapers no less 1)y the knowledge of American 
affiiirs which it has shown in the present crisis, than by its sympa- 
thy with the cause of constitutional liberty and fi^eedom. But it 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

\ 

has a correspondent who signs himself " Amcricus," who harms 
the cause he advocates by exhibiting in their most objectionable 
forms the overweening self-confidence and the disposition to blus- 
ter which the leading British journals most unjustly attribute, as a 
characteristic trait, to Americans in general, and to American 
journalists in particular. This will be seen by the following ex- 
tract from a late letter : 

" From these statements it Is evident enough that the Confede- 
rate States, so far from being able to sustain their position against 
the National Government, have not ah'diUj to maintain even their 
local supremacy , and those British statesmen who are looking for- 
ward to an early o^^portunity for recognizing the independence of 
the seceders, might as well pause in their policy until they ascer- 
tain that they are even tolerably unanimous among themselves. 
As sure as there is a sun in the heavens the rebellion will be put 
down. In sixty days Virgi7iia loill he cdl right again. North 
Carolina and Georgia really take no active part with the Confede- 
rates. Arkansas is again in a shiver of uncertainty, and before 
the year is out British ships will be loading in the Southern ports 
and taking their clearances from United States Custom Houses. 
Your government, therefore, will do well to avoid any premature 
action, and had better '■proceed no further with this business.'' If 
they do, there icill be a sorry sight. 

" One single fcdse step on the part of your Administration will pro- 
duce the entire loss of your trade. While I am now writing, patri- 
otic Home Leagaies are organizing for the purpose of discourag- 
ing the wear, purchase and use of all British manufactures in the 
Northern and Western States. Not a dollar'' s worth of your fab- 
ric ivill be consumed among us, if you recognize the Southern Con- 
federacy. This is no tlu-eat or thought of mine. It is a simple 
and stubborn fact, and is the first movement contemplated as 
retaliatory for any hasty recognition." 

If this were a fair sample of the style or the feeling of the rep- 
resentative men of this country, the judgment passed upon us by 
the London papers would be fully justified. 



22 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 



THE "TRENT" AFFAIR. 

The disgraceful and unreasonable panic by which the 
'well fought and nearly won battle of Bull Run was final- 
ly lost, gave great encouragement to hopes already excit- 
ed on both sides of the water, and was made the occa- 
sion of much Rebel brag and British bluster which need 
not be particularly noticed here ; and ere long the ill-ad- 
vised, but not unnatural step of Captain Wilkes afforded 
the British enemies of the United States a fivorable op- 
portunity, which they did not neglect, of putting the bad 
feeling and prejudice already existing among their coun- 
trymen to use against our government, and of arousing 
in those who had previously been indifferent a resentment, 
which although it had no just foundation, was as natural 
as the feeling of satisfaction which Captain Wilkes's act 
first awakened in this country. We all remembered the 
action of the British government toward us upon the 
same subject, which led to the war of 1812 — 14 ; and that al- 
though the war was brought to a close by the treaty of 
Ghent, the British Government had not withdrawn their 
claim to take British subjects from under our flag upon 
the high sea, or to stop and search even our vessels of war 
for that purpose. That was our last information as to 
British policy upon this subject. Therefore, although it is 
now well known that had Captain Wilkes had an opportu- 
nity of communicating with his government he would 
not have taken the Rebel Commissioners out of the Trent, 
every man of us felt at first a certain satisfaction in know- 
ing that Great Britain had had her own chalice put to her 
lips by one of our naval commanders. We knew that 
whether the act was in itself justifiable or not. Great Britain 



THE '-TRENT" AFFAIR. 23 

bad no right to complain of it, and especially at our hand. 
Of this there is the best possible evidence in the following 
paragraph from a leading article in the London Tiines^ 
published immediately upon the arrival of the news in 
England. 

It requires a strong effort of self-restraint to discuss with 
coolness the intelligence we publish to-day. . . . Unwelcome as 
the truth may be, it is nevertheless a trutli that we have ourselves 
established a system of international law ivhich now tells against us. 
In high-handed and almost despotic manner we have in former 
days [but within the memory of many yet living] claimed privi- 
leges over neutrals which have at different times banded all the 
maritime powers of the v/orld against us. We have insisted upon 
stopping ships of war of neutral nations and taking British sub- 
jects out of them. . . . We have been the strenuous asserters of 
the rights of belligerents over neutrals ; and the decisions of our 
courts of law as they must now he cited by our law-officers have 
been in conformity to those unreasonable claims which have called 
into being confederacies, and aroused neutrals against us, and 
which have always been modified in practice when we were not su- 
preme in dominion at sea." — Times, Oct. 28, 1861. 

The same just and sensible view of the case was taken 
two months later by that eminent scholar and publicist, 
Professor Newman, in the following letter which ap- 
peared in the London Star: 

To the Editor of the " Star and Dial.'''' Sir, — Your correspond- 
ent " Irenieus," of January 1, deprecates our making " excuses 
for Captain Wilkes and his applauchng countrymen." I think he 
confounds excuses with justifications. He further says that " unless 
America can assume at once the character of belligerent and non- 
belligerent, she cannot obtain the least excuse for her proceedings 
from anything that England has done." He surely forgets that we 
recently fought two wars with China (Lord Palmerston being then, 
as now. Prime Minister,) without any declaration of war : and 
when some persons raised an outcry that to do so was to be guilty 
of piracy, the Times replied, that to become belligerent would be 
highly inconvenient to our merchants, who would then no longer be 
at liberty to carry on commerce with " the enemy." England then 
chose to be simultaneously belligerent and non-belligerent ; and is 
without the shadow of an excuse for being now so squeamish on 
the question of " belligerent rights," as distinct from moral rights 
and natural proprieties. 



24 REBEL BR^ A^TD BRITISH BLUSTER. 

The act of Captain Wilkes, a'll the liberties taken by our ships 
against the Americans in our ivar ivith Napoleon, appear to me alike 
mijustifiable and unendurable. No one^ias a right to expect nations 
to regulate their feelings by the pettifogging of arbitary rules, which 
have been made by the powerful to suit their own convenience. 
Governments, indeed, ought not rudely to violate precedent, but 
President Lincoln has not yet taken any of the liberties which our 
Chinese wars assumed. Of course, he cannot admit that the South- 
erners are not rebels. In a military sense, he is evidently conced- 
ing to them belligerent rights, which is the obvious dictate of mo- 
rality whenever rebels are strong enough to meet you in the field ; 
although we in the late Indian war had not virtue nor wisdom to 
understand this. Bat in no civil sense will he concede that they 
have belligerent rights. If they are beaten in the loar, of course 
their leaders will be visited loith legal penalties, such as are necessary 
to prevent a repetition of their offence. And in this sense, I appre- 
hend, nothing is more reasonable than that the North should be 
simultaneously belligerent and non-belligerent. But it can gain no 
moral rights, as against neutrals, by declaring itself to be one or other. 
The Northerners, naturally enough, are trying to justify Captain 
WUkes's act by our precedents . The precedents do not perfectly tally 
to a lawyer's mind, bid they are as" like as two peas to a moral view, 
which is the only view which masses of men can take. Hence, I con- 
clude, we have to pull the beam out of our own eye first, and then 
fnay see more clearly to pull out the mote from our brother's eye. 

This was, \^ see, as inevitably it must have been, the 
verdict of every man of whatever country, who was 
sufficiently well informed to know the relations of the 
British to that of the United States upon this subject, 
and sufficiently candid to form his judgment without pre- 
judice or passion. But on second thoughts it was seen by 
our enemies that here was an opportunity of humiliating 
the Republic, or of bringing a second and, it was supposed, 
a certainly destructive "war upon its hands, which was too 
good to be let slip. Whereupon there was an outbreak 
of denunciation and of demand for satisfaction, which is 
still fresh in the world's memory, and of which the fol- 
lowing paragraph is a very mild specimen : 

This event, which has kindled all the honest blood of England, 
throws us back almost to the days of 1812. We fancy we see the 
Chesapeake coming out again,, with a cask full of handcuffs on her 
deck, to fight the old Shannon, which made a wreck of her. The 
quarrel of that epoch arose out of a question not dissimilar to that 



THE "TRENT" AFFAIR. 25 

which our Foreign Secretary is now challenged to unravel. Gov- 
ernment, of course, must wait for further details ; but whatever 
may be said, nothing can explain away the necessity for reparation 
and apology. If Captain Wilkes and Lieutenant Fairfax acted 
without instructions they must be reprimanded and dismissed from 
the navy. We must have the Connnissioners given up. We must 
have atonement for that shot and tliat shell fired without notice at 
a steamer conveying the Royal Mail, in charge of a Queen's ollicer. 
If there are persons who believe that Englishmen will be satisfied 
with less, they are pitiably mistaken. We made war in Cliina for 
the sake of a fishing-boat ; we niay, at feast, then, dare to protest 
when our national Hag has been virtually hauled down upon the 
high seas. The Federals have a right to ransack our ocean steam- 
ers ! The doctrine is monstrous." 



Certainly, because this time it was your ox that bad 
gored -my bull. 

What was the attitude of the people of this country ? 
It was one of unmixed satisfaction that Great Britain had 
been at last made to feel, and to feel at our bands, what it 
Avas to have her ships stopped upon the high seas, that the 
subjects of another government might be taken from them, 
while at the same time there was a determination among 
all sober and considerate people — in a word, among the 
great mass of our citizens who control the government, to 
give up the Rebel Commissioners should the Britisli 
Government demand them, and should that demand be 
found to be a proper one. This was shown by the dis- 
patch upon the subject sent immediately by Mr. Seward to 
our minister at London, before we had any intimation of 
the manner in wliich the news of the seizure was re- 
ceived by tlie British people. 

And the New York Times thus commented upon the 
resolutions of the House of Representatives complimenting 
Captain Wilkes : 

In thus putting on record, a formal approval of an act which 
has called forth universal public satisfaction, there is, of course, 
no intention to prejudge a case on which neither our own nor the 
British Government has yet pronounced an opinion, and which is 
now properly a matter of diplomacy alone. We all liked the bold 

2 



BRAO*. 



26 REBEL BRAO^AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

deed, and we liked it all the better because it seemed to be per- 
fectly justified by the principles and precedents of international law. 
Should it not be so justified, there can be no hesitation as to the 
course to be pursued ; however gratifying the seizure of the rebel 
ambassadors may have been, it is not worth the sacrifice of a 
single prmciple of the public morahty of nations. 

Upon this passage a British journal of repute, the Man- 
chester Guardian, well remarked as follows, December 
17th, 1861 : 

If this be really the lofty and candid spirit in which the action 
of Congress and other manifestations of public opinion are re- 
garded by those whose voice will be final, there is no reason yet 
for despairing of a pacific solution of the question. We wait, 
sm-ely not in confidence, but in hope. 

We did not think this spirit particularly " lofty ; " it 
was simple good faith and common sense ; just what Mr. 
Seward meant when he wrote his first dispatch immediate- 
ly on the arrival of the news in this country, of which 
dispatch the British public at this time had been permit- 
ted to know nothing. There was a confident tone here, 
upon the subject, vvhich was taken merely upon the as- 
sumption that John Bull would not have the face to ask 
us — of all nations — to give up our own citizens taken 
from one of his ships. But we overrated both Brother 
John's consistency and his modesty. 

But in spite of these demonstrations, it was determined 
that so good an opportunity to humiliate our country or 
to aid in its disruption must not be lost. Mr. Seward's 
dispatch was not communicated to the public through 
Parliament, and the expressions of willingness to give up 
Messrs. Slidell and Mason were for a time j^assed by, 
Whatever was done upon the subject here was misrepre- 
sented or carped at. The Saturday Review of Decem- 
ber 7th, said : — 

If Mr. Lincoln has been prudent enough to pass over in silence 
the capture of the Southern Commissioners, he may still be at Hb- 



THE " TRENT "■ AFFAIR. 27 

erty to comply witli tlie reiiuisitions of international law. The 
Senate, or its Connnittee on Foreign Relations, may perhaps waive 
its concarrent authority ; or, if it has the wisdom and patriotism 
to share the responsibility of a just concession, it may protect the 
Executive against the unpopularity which might otherwise be in- 
curred by the surrender of the prisoners. 

Well, Mr. Lincoln loas " prudent enough " to pass the 
subject ov^er in silence ; whereupon the London Times 
spoke thus, December 17th : 

It is not easy to see why Mr. Lincoln should have omitted from 
his speech all notice of the case of the Trent. If he means to 
give up the persons illegally seized, one would have -l^liought it no 
unwise precaution to prepare the public mind for such a decision. 
If he means to keep them, we cannot understand why he does not 
grasp at all the popularity that is to be had in exchange for pres- 
ent war and future ruin, instead of allowing it to be picked up by 
obscure members of Congress embarking in a contest whether the 
transcendent merits of Commodore Willces would be best reward- 
ed by thanks or by a gold medal. 

Mr. Lincoln was to be found fault with and sneered at 
all the same, speaking or silent. This was not all. 
When it became too plain to be longer concealed that 
the rebel commissioners would be j-estored to British 
protection, and that the longed-for opportunity was lost 
although the very articles from the New York Times 
above quoted had been published in some of the London 
papers, the w^illingness to make the restoration was attri- 
buted to fear excited by hostile proceedings, of which 
nothing could have been known until long after Mr. 
Seward's dispatch was written, and sometime after the 
declarations in question were made in our most respecta- 
ble and influential papers. The mischief-makers thus 
presented this view of the case : 

The prospects of peace have improved, for the Americans have 
been startled into decorum and moderation. The Britisli demand 
for redress acted upon an excitable people like a cold douche on a 
drunkard, producing first irritation, then bewilderment, and then a 
return to sober sense. Up to the ICth of December, when they 



28 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 



had heard only of English excitement, the papers were still full of 
elation, [Will it be believed, the artide from the IST. Y. Times, above 
quoted, v/as published in England on 4he 17th of December, and 
the first intimation of a demand for the commissioners and of war- 
like preparation reached this country on the 16th of that month,] 
fully convinced that remonstrance would be confined to an arti- 
cle in the Times or a speech in the House of Commons. . . Fur- 
ther evidence, however, dispelled many of these illusions. The rapid 
collection of transports, the despatch of the troops to Canada, the 
order to the Guards to be ready for active service, the seizure of 
saltpetre, the addresses of the Naval reserve, and, above all, the 
letters sent from influential Americans in London, convinced all 
men not wilfully deaf, that England was roused at last, and that the 
only alternative was a just conciliation or war. Then at last the 
politicians began to reflect, to take stock, as it were, of their po- 
sition, to reinember that whatever the other results of a maritime 
war, it must at least cost them the South. The papers became 
suddenly decent. — Saturday Review, Jan. 4th, 18G2. 

Never for a moment did the people or the Government of 
America show a symptom of repenting the unjust act of Captain 
Wilkes. When the fu-st utterances of the English journals after 
news of the* outrage came to hand, their tone of moderation was 
falsely interpreted into a recognition of the justice of Captain 
Wilkes's proceeding. Never till America heard that the ink with 
which Earl RusselPs peremptory despatches were written was not 
dry before all the energies of our Government were directed to 
hostile preparations, did the public opinion of the United States 
waver. But it did waver then. When troops were ordered to 
Canada — when ship afler ship was commissioned to carry out men 
and military stores for the defence of the Canadian frontier — when 
it was evident that the British lion was thoroughly roused from the 
inaction of mingled prudence and contempt, then the tone of the 
New York press became moderate ; then the popular feeling against 
giving up the Commissioners began to subside ; then people began 
to think that the Federal Government, if the commands of the 
British Government were couched in moderate language — your 
Yankee loves moderate language — would be j^omplied with; and 
then the House of Representatives, which, but a few days before, 
had passed a vote of thanks to Captain Wilkes, sat down, like ancient 
Pistol, to eat the leek it had insultingly brandished in our faces. 
— Morning Chronicle of Jan. 2, 1862. 

The Trent affiiir was seftled, and passed quietly into 
history, not by the reprimand and dismissal of Captain 
Wilkes and Lieutenant Fairfax, not by the reparation and 
apology which were so loudly clamored for and pronounc- 



THE "TRENT" AFFAIR. 29 

ed to be indispensable ; because it was felt that Great 
Britain had no reasonable pretence to any such atonement, 
but by a simple returning of the Rebels to British protec- 
tion, in accordance with principles of international inter- 
course which the government of the United States had 
maintained from the begining, and as to Great Britain's 
self-confessed sudden conversion to which we could not 
at that time prudently take exception. The record upon 
this^ subject begins, as we have seen, with a confession 
from the London Times that Great Britain herself had 
established a system of international law which in this 
matter told against them ; it closes, after all the vituper- 
ation of our lawlessness and insolence, in which the Sat- 
tirday Mevieta bore a conspicuous part, by the following 
confession by that paper made two years later, surrounded 
with more.abuse, like a bitter pill with sweet-meats, that 
the right of the question was not clearly on the British 
side, even to British eyes, until after a curious search 
for it. 

(From the Saturday Review of Nov. 12, 1864.) 

As the haughty claim to absolute dominion throughout the N'orth 
American Continent [which was never set up] never went beyond 
words, those European countries to whom it was addressed as an in- 
sult treated it with the indifference which it deserved ; but the same 
spirit of defiance of all legal and conventional restraints has more 
than once displayed itself on the boundaries of our own colonies, 
and was no doubt the chief inducement to the ill-fated experiment 
on our forbearance which ended in the surrender of the prisoners 
taken from the Trent. But in that case the offended Power was 
England, and it must in fairness he added that the outrage ivas not 
so glaringly in excess of belligerent rights as to be recognised in its true 
character until after a careful study of precedents and legal authori' 
ties. 



30 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 



IMPOSSIBILITY OF PUTTIN'G DOWK THE RE- 
BELLIO^T. 

From tlie very earliest stages of the war the great 
theme of all the wiseacres iu Great Britain, from John 
O'Groat's house to Land's End, was the impossibility, on 
what may be called general principles, of putting down 
the rebellion, and of preserving the integrity of the Re- 
public. This was asserted in all the moods and tenses. It 
was predicted ; it was proved. It was shown to be the 
only conclusion to which experienced statesmen who knew 
something of the past, (of wliich Yankees of course knew 
nothing,) and who had had their wits sharpened in the po- 
litical collisions of the present day, could arrive. We were 
told about three times a week from London that all the wit 
and the wisdom of Europe was jeering at us and rejoicing 
over the ruin of the Republic, wliich was already regarded 
as accomplished. Our self-elected mentors began to give 
us this counsel in pure friendliness, and only for our own 
good, many weeks even before the Trent affair. 

(From the London Times of Sept. 18G1.) 

If a clear foresight shows, and must show, tJiat there must he two 
Federations, and tliat on no oil ler footing loill peace ever be made, it 
will be much better that it should come to pass after one year's war 
than after ten or twenty. It is not as if the Union or two Unions 
were the only alternative. As the war proceeds, no man can tell 
what new powers and combinations may arise, and particularly how 
far the Western States will endure the taxes and financial obhga- 
tions necessary for the war. The advice we offer is only what tlie 
Americans have given to all the world. It is a hank of their own 
cotton, — a pipe of their own tobacco. Let them consider what 
they can do, and what neither they nor all the world can do. At 
present they are only giving a triumph to many a foe, for there is 
not a circle of old absolutist statesmen and diplomats who do not 
read the story of their difficulties and reverses with a bitter smile. 
They will licar with a,t least respect, perhaps with disappointment, 
that the Xorth and South have agreed to part friends. 



PUTTING DOWN THE REBELLION. 31 

It occurs to us as barely possible that the worthy old 
statesmen and diplomats are now siniling on the other side 
of the mouth. They have not suffered the sad disappoint- 
ment of seeing the North and South part friends ; and as 
to their respect, why, " let that' appear when there is no 
need of such vanity." 

(From the London Times of Sept. 1861.) 

The Americans rushed into the war as recklessly as any nation 
could have done. The Peace party among them never obtained 
anything like such a hearing as was accorded to our peacemakers 
at home. Every offer of arbitration was rejected with the fiercest 
contempt. They are conducting their war with such incredible 
prodigality that observers used to the extravagance of camps and 
campaigning are astounded at the spectacle, and, to complete the 
picture, they are providing for this enormous outlay in the most 
improvident and costly fashion. Being unwilling to tax themselves, 
tliey resort to borrowing, arid are raising loans at a rate toliich will 
soon make their National Debt one of the heaviest in the world. We 
can only hope, indeed, that a policy so recklessly adopted, may 
soon bring with it, as an unavoidable consequence, the termination 
of the strife. If financial embarrassments should furnish the surest 
road to peace, the sooner they are experienced the better. We 
can assure the Americans that war is not likely to become cheaper, 
nor borrowing easier, as months pass on. The course of such 
things is very different. Each campaign opens new fields, absorbs 
new armies, and creates new charges. The great ball of debt, 
when once set rolling, will gather and grow till its dimensions out- 
strip all speculation. In our belief, the forcible subjugation of the 
South would prove a hopeless task, even if all the States of the 
North poured their wealth unsparingly into the Federal Exchequer, 
but if they attempt to defray its accumulating charges with money 
borrowed at 7 per cent., they will find themselves engaged in an 
expenditure which no country in the world could ever support. 

And yet we went on for four years after this solemn 
warning, to which we showed a most unbecoming in- 
difference, and borrowed money at 7 per cent, and actual- 
ly at this time have the impudence to be living and pros- 
pering. 

(From the Saturday Review, Dec. 7, 1861.) 

It happens to be the unanimous opinion of ninteen educated 
Knglishmen out of twenty that a more purposeless and hopeless 



32 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 



enterprise than the reconqriest of tlie South by the Federal Gov- 
ernment has never been projected by any ancient or modern 
State. 

This is the opinion. Farther on in the same article we 
find the following nice little reasons for that opinion. 

If the war proceed?, it may perhaps become expedient to set 
right the errors or frauds of diplomacy by rectifying the boundary 
Ihies in Maine and in Oregon, and a superiority in arms will also 
be profita,bly employed in closing the vexatious dispute about San 
Juan ; but, in general, England enters into the contest without a 
selfish impulse, for the purpose of coercing a rude and arrogant 
Government Into the observance of national justice and courtesy. 
There will be little dhTiculty in applying the force wliich may be 
necessary for this purpose thorough the exclusive instrumentahty of 
the tleet. No army Avill be required, except to assist in the defence 
of Canada ; and the home garrisons can easily spare troops for 
this purpose without any serious augmentation of the peace • es- 
tablishment. 

Oh ! For farther elucidation of the latter topic, read 
the anxious debates in Parliament and the articles in the 
London newspapers in the spring of 1864, on — the "De- 
fence of Canada ! " 

The Saturday Heview of February 8, 1862, having in 
the same number, with an entire absence of that nation- 
al boastfiilness which is so distinguishing a trait of the 
Yankees, said " Our position is so thoroughly superior to 
that of the Americans, that it is needless self-degrada- 
tion " &c. &c., thus spoke ex cathedra upon the rebellion. 

The Illustration of general truths by contemporary experience is 
perfectly compatible with the absence of any desire to exult over " 
the misfortunes and confusion of the defunct Union. The enter- 
prise of the North was, from the first, seen to be altogether JiojM- 
less, but full allowance was made for the natural determination to 
try the fortune of war before final acquiescence In disruption. 
Only during the uncertainty arising from the Trent outrage was 
there any wish or expectation of taking a pait in the quarrel, and 
ther^ is now a general determination not to provide the Federalists 
with any pretext for excusing away their Own certain failure by 
English interference. Sixty days will soon have passed away, and 
at the end of the term the South will not have been conquered, 



PUTTING DOWN THE REBELLION. 83 

and tJie resources of the Treasury will he exhausted'. When tlie ex- 
periment has been tried to the end, it will perhaps be thought that 
it is useless to reconmience it. ^ 

Of course that settled the matter.- One of the highest 
authorities of the nation which is " so thorouglily supe- 
rior" having thus spoken, that was the end of the law. 
With a perversity entirely unaccountable however, in 
spite of this tremendous utterance, the matter would not 
stay settled. 

(From the Saturday Review Feb. 8, 1852.) 

« That both England and the world at large have just now some 
heavy charges to bring against the Government and people of the 
United States is an assertion which we really need not stop to 
prove. That the civil v/ar is a very unwise war, which cannot lead 
to any good object, is not the main point. That a war should 
seem useless and foolish to impartial spectators, while the beUiger- 
ents enter into it heart and soul, is one of the commonest pheno- 
mena in the history of warflire. The North is just as foolish for 
trying to reconquer the South as we were eighty-five years ago for 
trying to reconquer North and South together. It is just as fool- 
ish as Englishmen were in those earlier times when they attached 
the idea of national glory and happiness to the conquest of France. 
It is just as foolish as Xerxes was when he led half the world 
against ^thens, or as Napoleon was when he led half Europe 
against Russia. The mere folly is just as great and no greater, 
than in any of these cases. 

Upon this tlieme as upon all others the presses of 
Richmond and those of London, with two distinguished 
exceptions -— The Daili/ JSfeios and the Spectator — sung 
the same tune. But passing by the frothy outpourings 
at Richmond we may betiter listen to men high in office 
in the so called Confederacy. Even after the capture of 
New Orleans, the rebel Governor Moore thus held forth 
from Opelousas, June 18th, 1862. 

THE STRUGGLE AND ITS SURE RESULT. 

The loss of New Orleans, bitter humiliation as it was to Louisi- 
ana, has not created despondency, nor shaken our abiding faith 
in our success. Not to the expected eye of the enthusiastic pa- 

9* 



34 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 



triot alone, who miglit bero color events witli his hopes, but to 
the more impassioned gaze of the statesman, that success was 
cerl^n from the beginning. . . Our recognition as a nation is one 
of those certainties of the fliture whicli nothing but our own un- 
faithfulness can prevent. We must not look around for friends 
for help when the enemy is straight befbre us. Help yourselves. 
It is the great instrument of national, as of individual success. 

THOS. O. MOOllE, Gov. of Louisiana. 

Opelousas, June 18, 1862. 

The Northerners, though they have shown themselves more' 
liable to delusion than any one could have believed of such a 
people, are not fools ; and, in spite of the boasting and lying of 
their Government, [strange people, these Yankees, to be olfended 
by language equally truthful and respectful,] they are receiving 
the conviction that such a people as the Confederates can never 
be subjugated. If it were a war for a fortress or a frontier, they 
would not be discouraged ; but when they reflect on the object of 
the present invasion, and remember that they have undertaken not 
only to defeat the armies of Lee and Beauregard, but to utterly 
•^destroy them, to occupy the whole Southern territory [A task quite 
impossible ! ] and garrison it year after year with a standing army 
of at least a quarter of a million men, it may well be imagined 
that they are cooled and sobered by the prospect. We cannot 
but think that a great change of feeling is likely to take place at 
the North. The under currents of the popular mind are at first 
not visible ; it is only when they have gained volume and strength 
that they can change the course of the stream. But there is enough 
to show that multitudes of the Northern peoj^le are becoming 
weary of this purposeless slaughter. About the temper of the 
business men there can be little doubt ; they have been for many 
weeks giving to the cause of peace all the influence which their 
own timidity and the constitution of American society will allow 
them. But now we have fair grounds for believing that matters 
have gone further, and that the groat body of the people are slow- 
ly coming round to the opinions of their less short-sighted country- 
men. That these will be candid and confess their own madness is 
not to be expected. A people never recants. But they may 
show their rulers, by sigiis not to be mistaken, that they will tol- 
erate, no more of Mr. Lincohi's crusade. The question will be 
soon determined. If this war is to go on, the immense levy or- 
dered by the President must actually be made. The 300,000 men 
must be forthcoming if Virginia is to be held. But they ivill not 
be forthcoming. [This was in the year 1862.] We are told in the last 
dispatches that the volunteering makes slow progress, and the 
question of a conscription is still discussed. Our corespondent 
declares that in 11 days only 15,000 men had come foi-ward, in spite 
of the enormous bounty, amounting in all to 150 dollars, that was 
ofiered to each man by the Federal and State Governments. 



PUTTING DOW^ THE REBELLION. 35 

Draughting for service or in other woiyIs a corflscription, was 
talked about ; but we shoukl think it woukl only be talked about. 
The scheme of a forcible levy of troops in a Republic to sulijugate 
and hold down another Republic is one tliat will hardly be serious- 
ly proposed even by the more fanatical of Mr. Lincoln's advisers. 
All now, therefore, depends on the enlistment that is going on 
under the President's proclamation. If this fails, then all is over, 
and after a few months the independence of the South must be 
acknowledged, as it might have been with profit a twelve month 
ago. — London Times, July 26, 1862. 

Not only the journalists but the statesmen of Great 
Britain announced to us our certain destruction, and in 
the kindness of their hearts bade us make our arrans^e- 
ments with that end in view. Mr. Roebuck, and even 
Mr. Gladstone, thus favored us in August 1862. Mr. 
Gladstone saying " Mr. JeiFerson Davis has made of the 
South a nation " and that " separation is as certain as any 
event yet future and contingent." 

(From Mr. Roebuck's Sheffield Speech.) 

Touching upon the civil war in America, he [Mr. Roebuck] 
said he had at first looked at the disruption of the Union with 
grief, [In fact, though it is not generally known, Mr. Roebuck was 
drowned in sorrow.] but his present feeling was one of rejoicing. 
An irresponsible people, possessed of irresponsible and almost 
omnipotent power, was a people that could not be trusted ; and he 
regarded the attempt of the North in endeavoring to restore the 
Union by force as an immoral proceeding totally incapable of suc- 
r;€ss [Quite so Mr. Roebuck, without a doubt.] He therefore begged 
the noble lord deeply to consider whether the time had not come 
or him to be the first in Europe to ask the great Powers of Europe 
fco rocognize the Southern Confederacy. Six months would not 
pass over before that was done. [And they didn't pass, Mr. Roe- 
buck ; we all know they didn't.] 

KECOGNITION OR MR. GLADSTONE'S REMOVAL. 

(From the London Morning Herald, October 13, 1862.) 

But, if immediate intervention ])e not desirable, there is no pre- 
text for delaying the recognition of the Confederate States. That 
recognition jointly made by Russia, France and England, would be 
of service to the belligerents, and to mankind in general. It would 
withdraw from the North, in its wanton aggression upon the Con- 
federates, that negative sanction which it has hitherto received 
from Europe. It would formally condemn further attempts to re- 



36 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 



conquer the Soiitb as hopeless, and therefore criminal. It voald 
tend to strengthen the hands of the peace party at the North, and 
take away from their opponents the argument that, while foreign 
powers have not recognized the seceders, it is unreasonable to ask 
the G OA'ernment which claims their allegiance to be the first to pro- 
claim its own overthrow. To this recognition England — or rath- 
er the English Cabinet — is the sole obstacle. France is willing, 
and Russia will not refuse to follow the lead of France. And Sii 
John Parkinton has called attention to a system which ought to 
indicate an approaching change of policy on our part. When a 
Cabinet Minister distinctly and publicly declares that Mr. Davis 
has made of the South a nation, and that separation is as certain 
as any event yet future and contingent can be [as Mr. Gladstone 
did] , he affirms that according to every recent rule and precedents 
the South is entitled to recognition. 

We have seen what Governor Brown said afler the tak- 
ing of New Orleans; let us now see what that "great," 
" accomplished," " wise," and above all, that " prudent " and 
" reticent " statesman, Jefferson Davis, said, a few months 
before the fall of Yicksburg. 

{Speech before the Mississippi Legislature^ Dec. 26, 1862.) 

I have confidence that Vicksburg wiU stand as before, and I 
hope that Johnston will find generals to support him if the enemy 
dare to land. Port Hudson is now strong, Viclsbiirg loill stand ; 
and Port Hudson ivill stand ; but let every man that can be spared 
from other vocations, hasten to defend them, and thus hold the 
Mississippi river, that great artery of the Confederacy, preserve 
our communications with the trans-Mississippi department, and 
thwart the enemy's scheme of forcing navigation through to 
New Orleans. By holding that section of the river between Port 
Hudson and Vieksburgh, we shall secure these results, and the 
people of the West, cut o(F from New Orleans, will be driven to 
the East to seek a market for their products, and will be com- 
pelled to pay so much in the way of freights, that those products 
will be rendered ahnost valueless. Thus, 1 should not be sur- 
prised if the first daybreak of peace were to dawn upon us from 
that quarter. . . On my way here I stopped at the headquarters 
of Gen. Johnston. I knew his capacity and his resolution. I 
imparted to him my own thoughts, and asked him to come with 
me. I found that his ideas were directed in the same channel. 
He came in the shortest time for preparation, but whatever- 
man can do will be done by him. I have perfect confidence that, 
with your assistance and support, he will drive the enemy from 
the soil of Mississippi. 



PUTTING DOWN THE REBELLION. 37 

There is some dispute as to the kind and the measure 
oT punishment which should be inflicted upon Jefierson 
Davis. Woukl it be sufficient to commute the punish- 
ment to which he is liable by law to the reading to him, 
at intervals of a week or so, in his casemate at Fortress 
Monroe, all his speeches and " state papers " — those won- 
derfully " wise -and sagacious " productions — from 1860 
to 1865 ? To this there is however one insuperable ob- 
jection, — " Cruel punishments" are forbidden by the Con- 
stitution. 



38 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 



THE FRENCH PEACE PROPOSITION. 

We all remember that generous and purely disinterest- 
ed offer of the French Government to mediate between 
tlie two confederate parties ; and how IMr. Seward quietly 
replied that this government w^as quite able to manage 
its own affairs. But it may be interesting or at least 
amusing to refresh our memories of the manner in which 
that reply was received by the leading organs of British 
public opinion. 

(From the London Times, Feb. 28, 1863.) 

Either Mr. Seward can clearly discern what nobody else can 
distinguish, or he is without the power of seeing what is patent to 
the whole world tesides. If he is not preternaturally right, he is 
incomprehensibly wrong. Taking his dispatches — as, of course, 
we must do for expressions of sincere and genuine convictions on 
the sul >ject of the war — we find it almost impossible to imagine 
how opinions so unique could have been formed out of materials 
which are common to the whole world. Mr. Seward knows no 
more, or, at least, states no more, than is known to everybody in 
Europe as well as America, and yet, in the most decisive and 
peremptory tone, he announces conclusions which nobody in 
Europe, and, as we believe, few even in America, would think of 
accepting '• 

In this document he calmly, and even argumentatively, ignores 
every one of the lessons which Europe has involuntarily learnt 
from the events of the war. He, a Republican of 1863, depicts 
himself as no less incapable than an ancient Bom"bon of learning 
an}i:hing at all. In his eyes there is no war between regular 
belligerents, but only an armed insurrection, which the United 
States are vigorously, and, as he maintains, triumphantly putting 
down. He denies that there are any two such parties, even, as 
North and South. He is not aware of any such distinction. . . . 

After this, of course there was little room for the acceptance of 
the French proposals. Mr. Seward repudiates the idea of a Con- 
ference between a National Government aud an insurgent force, 
precisely as he might have done before the first battle of Bull 
Run. He is much obhged to the French, but he will have none of 
it, and nothing, indeed, but misconceptions of fact, based on er- 



THE FRENCH PEACE PROPOSITION. 39 

roneous representations, could have suggested the proposition. 
That is the last phase ol" the American war as etched by ]Mr. Ss- 
wanl. We must allow that this picture of alFairs is consistent — 
consistent, that is, with all that Mr. Se^vwrd has written from the 
beginning. It is the very story, without change or omission, which 
we have had, backed with his note of hand at " 90 days' date," and 
renewed any number of times during the last two years. It is 
consistent enough, so fan, beyond a doubt. AVhether it has any 
consistency with facts or truth is a question which we had much 
rather leave to be decided by events than argue with Mr. Seward 
at present. 

• What a foolish person that Mr. Seward was ; and how 
wise the Times editors ; and how very small Mr. Seward 
must feel when he reflects how the Times poked fan at 
him and chafted him, and gave him good and friendly ad- 
vice ! It was he who was incomprehensibly wrong, and 
the editor of the Times who w^as preternaturally right, 
to the tune of £10,000. The Morrmig Post (Ministe- 
rial organ) thus held forth upon this subject about this 
time : 

" Perhaps Mr. Seward expects to gain in Washington, amongst 
certain classes, a httle political capital, and, in exchange for that, 
is indiiierent about the contempt he must incur in Europe. Still, 
emanating as this document does, from the Federal Cabinet, it is 
truly incredible that that body should have sunk so low as to in- 
dorse as its own, in the face of the world, so much arrant falsehood 
and absm-d nonsense. 

" Falsehood." Again we remark, what incomprehensi- 
ble people the Yankee^ are to take offence at the tone of 
the British press. 

At last came the victory of Gettysburg, and after it 
came these comments: 

(From the London Times, July 21, 18G3.) * 

We forecast very naturally and pleasantly, that as reunion Is im- 
possijde, and the only object of fighting is to have the last blow, the 
winning side will be glad to make a kind and genei'ous use of that 
vantage. Over and over again it has been hoped that the losing 
side might just retrieve its credit, in order to have something 
wherewith to enter on a Conference. Whether these hopes are 
founded on a just estimate of iiuman nature or not, it is too evident 



40 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

that they were not foumlili^n a just estimate of American nature. 
There must be other intiuences at work beyond the hope of final 
success, which is impossible, or of an amicable compromise, or of 
any other national result." .... Whether the Federals are ever 
beaten into peace or not, it is evident they will never be softened 
into kindness by success. The least ad'\j;antage, however dearly 
purchased, and be it ever so trifling in the great balance of war, 
brings them to the balcony, and sends them to " the God of Battles" 
and " the eternal justice of their cause." When this is all that vic- 
tory, all that religion teaches them, we reasonably ask when will 
they ever condescend to be reasonable and wise. The awfld sanc- 
tions and sacred examples which they abuse might tell them anoth- 
er lesson. There is in the very manner of this obstinacy so much 
mere exultation that we must conclude the spirit of the Federal 
cause to be the chief obstacle to peace. 

What a generous and sagacious view is here ! A peo- 
ple sacrifice the flower of their young men by tens of 
thousands ; they spend, each man contributing from his 
own hard earnings, millions a day for years ; hardly a 
family in the land in which there is not one dead or ex- 
posed to death ; (what is the hope of saving £10,000 or 
of getting £15,000, without paying a shilling, to this?; 
and yet the only object is " to have the last blow." And 
that extraordinary conclusion, so true in one sense, so 
wide from the truth in the sense intended, — that the 
chief obstacle to peace is " the spirit of the Federal 



• THE SAME OLD STORY. 
(From the London Times, ^ly 12, 1864.) 

This is the fourth j'ear of the war, and also the fourth 
and last year of JMr. Lincoln Presidentship. He entered 
on office in March, 186 1, but his election in the previous No- 
vember led to the secession of many of the Southern States be- 
fore the close of the year. Practically, therefore, in respect to the 
influence which it exercised, his tenure of office may be regarded 
as having commenced four months before he took up liis residence 
at the Wliite House, and will in like manner terminate as soon as 
his successor is appointed. We do not think, therefore, that the 
present Administration will have the opportunity, even if it pos- 
sessed the inclination or the means, of projecting another inva- 
sion of Virginia on a scale similar to the recent one. But will 
their successors pursue the policy which has hitherto so signally 



THE FRENCH PEACE PROPOSITION. 41 

failed, or will the population of the IS'orthGrn States elect a Chief 
Magistrate who will follow in the footsteps of Mr. Lincoln ? We 
are inclined to think not. We will not now reiterate the arguments 
which, from the commencement of the civil war, have satisfied ev- 
ery unprejudiced mind of the futility of the enterprise undertaken 
by the Northern Republic, and which each succeeding month has 
served to corroborate. The war is now, as we stated, in its fourth 
year, and what progress have the Northern States made toward 
the completion of their work of conquest ? In the Border State 
of Virginia their armies have never, during the entire war, gained 
a single victory. [True, Antietam and Gettysburg were not won 
within the limits, although tiiey were won against the army of 
Virginia. But Malvern Hill, from which the rebel forces fled accord- 
ing to their own accounts ' ' amid the cheers of the Union troops " 
was won in Virginia ; and after it a general with the aggressive 
Spirit of a cock span^ow would have marched straight into Rich- 
mond.] This is a fact which, taking into consideration the numer- 
ous occasions on which the rival armies came in collision, and the 
many vicissitudes of warfare, is very remarkable. Everywhere — 
at New-Orleans, on the Mississippi, and in Tennesee — the armies 
of the Northern Confederacy gained what in appearance were 
substantial victories, but which have not, even in the slightest 
degree, tended to bring the Southern States under the control of 
the original Government. 

It is impossible to believe that the population of the Northern 
States do not perceive that which is patent to the eyes of every 
one on this side of the Atlantic, and it is difficult to suppose that 
they will much longer continue on the road to ruin. Everything 
will turn upon the expression of public opinion, as manifested at 
the approaching Presidential election. There are many who will 
still maintain the expediency of continuing to prosecute the war, 
and will demand the reestablishment of the Union. But they are 
not the majority of the population. Those who have accumulated 
wealth through the factitious impetus which the war gives to trade, 
the " shoddy" aristocracy of the Northern cities, will be loud in 
their demands for the subjugation of the South ; and those who 
hope to become wealthy before the crash which will follow the sus- 
pension of hostilities will echo this cry. But the more far-sighted, 
who know that to continue the war is only to add to the immense 
debt already created, and so increase the evils which will unques- 
tionably sooner or later fall as a punishment on the people of the 
Northern States for having wasted their resources, will as earnest- 
ly require that those to whom the direction of public affairs shall 
be intrusted shall seek by every means in their power to bring the 
war to a speedy end. Already preparations are being made for 
tlie election of Mr. Lincoln's successor, and it is in connection 
with that election that "the discomfiture of the grand army of the 
North will possess its chief importance. 



42 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 



(From theT!?llll|n Times of October 10, 1864.) 

We sec the frantic patient teainng the bandages from bis wounds 
and thrusting aside the hand that would assuage his miseries, and 
every day that the war goes on we see less and less probabihty 
that the great fabric of the Union will ever be reconstructed in its 
original form, and more and more likelifiood that the process of 
disintegration will extend far beyond the present division between 
North and South. We observe the rapid destruction of that 
mighty fabric of prosperity which was so formidable a rival to our 
own colonies, and we look forward, at no distant date, to the day 
when the credit of the Republic must be hopelessly and utterly 
destroyed. Were Ave really animated by the spirit of hostility 
which is always assumed to prevail among us towards America, 
we should view the terrible spectacle with exultation and dehght, we 
should rejoice that the American people, untaught by past misfor- 
tunes, have resolved to continue the Avar to the end, and hail the 
probable continuance of the poAver of Mr. Lincoln as the event 
most calculated to pledge the nation to a steady continuance in its 
suicidal policy. But Ave are persuaded that the people of this 
country view the prospect of another four years of Avar in Ameri- 
ca with very different feelings. They are not able to divest them- 
selves of sympathy for a people of their own blood and language 
[" the scum of the earth," — Roebuck; "a nuisance among the 
nations," — Morning Herald] "barbarians," "blackguards." — 
Saturday Bevieiv.'] thus wilfully rushing down the path that lead- 
eth to destruction. 

Ruin stares the Union in the face if the war is to be conducted by 
General M'Clellan, and if it be conducted by President Lincoln 
the result must be exactly the same. Why should we feel anxie- 
ty as to the success of one party or the other, Avhen either must be 
equally latal to the Avelfare of the Republic and equally pernicious 
to the cause of liberty and good Government throughout the 
world ? 

SAD FOREBODINGS 

(From the London Times of Dec. 22d, 1834.) 

Last and dreariest of all are the President's views on the pros- 
pects of peace. No negotiation can do any good. The Union 
must be preserved. The South insists on scA'ering it. Tlie 
President recommends, by way of a peace-offering, the total al)- 
olition of slavery — a measure sure to be passed sooner or later, 
and which, he thinks, may as well be done at once. " It is still 
open to " all to lay down their arms and seek pardon, but " the 
time may come, probably will come, when "public duty shall de- 
mand that the avenue to " grace shall be closed." Thus, without 
apparently possessing any confidence that he can bring the war to 



THE FRENCH PEACE PROPOSITION. 43 

a speedy or successflil termination, does the President refuse all 
reconciliation, except on terms which he well knows the Southern 
leaders cannot and will not acccept, — the laying down their arms, 
suing for pardon, immediate abolition of slavery, and restoration 
of the Union as it was four years ago. The vessel is driving 
straio-ht on the rocks, and the hehnsinan will not move his hand to 
the right or to the left in order to avoid a collision which must 
shatter it to atoms. 

Poor foolisli helmsman ! If he had only hearkened to 
the British Bunsby who can give "an opinion as is an 
opinion," he would not have seen his rickety craft 
wrecked, ruined, shattered to atoms. 

And here we have our own dear Morning Herald 
again, the mou.th-piece of the collective wisdom of the 
JCarleton club : 

(From the Morning Herald, March 4, 1865.) 

Look at the Americans now, at the date of their grand political 
celebration, and what do we behold? Not even the solemnity of 
a civil war. Only fury, levity and an atrocious disregard of na- 
ture ; only a charlatanism which has ceased to dazzle ; only riot, 
destruction,^ and In-utality. There is a legend extant which tells 
how the First Napoleon, in a dream invented for hhn by some 
artistic poet, felt wounded in his heart when he reviewed liis dead 
legions in tha Elysian fields of Paris ; but tlie pang his conscience 
felt must have been as nothing compared with the sting to Abra- 
ham Lincoln, were it credible that the representative rail-splitter 
ever had a conscience at all. . . A civil war, of horrible ferocity, 
spreads itself like a deadly exhalation over the land, and there is 
not a single American statesman in office competent or wilhng to 
guide_ his nation out of the disastrous abyss. America, as an 
Anierican orator ejaculated once, is "England without a past ! " 
This fourth day of March disposes us to ask her politicians upon 
what calculations they base their calculation of chances for the fu- 
ture. ^ They can have no pride in their present position ; they can 
have little hope ; they have seen their constitution wreckecf, and 
where are they at this hour ? In a word, what aj^-e we ^pecting 
from day to day, from their vast and teeming continent ? Intelli- 
gence of war, of carnage, of misery, and social degradation, over 
which a people, celebrating a disgraced anniversary, must blush 
and be bitterly ashamed. 

We do blush ; we are ashamed. We put our hands 
upon our mouths and our mouths in the dust, and we 
bow down before our elder brother the great, the wise 
John Buil. 



44 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

BLT3a^)ER UPON BLUNDER. 

The war went on, and in the Spring of the present 
year the prospect was not exactly that which had been 
seen through the ^spectacles of the London Times. 
Whereupon there began to be a di'eadful twitter in the 
governing classes of Great Britain — a fearful looking for 
of judgment to come, and upon this the Thnes worked, 
hoping, according to all api)earances, to keep up ani- 
mosity and to run witli tlie current of opinion which 
it sought to control. Whereupon Mr. Forster, M. P. for 
Bradford, accused the Times in the House of asserting 
that " there" could be no question but that the Federals 
would go to war with us whenever a prospect of success 
presented itself." This was in a debate upon the Cana- 
dian defences. Whereupon the Times replied and read 
Mr. Forster this little lecture : 



We have left ourselves but little room for our own case with these 
gentlemen. Mr. Forster, we are sorry to tell so amiable a gen- 
tleman, has committed a double inaccuracy. He charges us with 
asserting positively that, upon the restoration of peace, Federals 
and Confederates will join to invade Canada, and with wishing that 
the war may last. We neither made the assertion nor expressed 

the wish We do not assert, and never have asserted, that 

the two belligerents will unite to invade Canada. 

Whereupon certain uncomfortable persons quoted the 
following passage from a Times leading article. 

(Erom the London Times, March 8, 1865. 

As the Federal Government maintains that it has a quarrel with 
us in the shape of claims which we do not acknowledge, and it has 
a great cleal to gain by successful war with us, the question to 
which we have to address ourselves is simply wlieiJier they can go 
to war with us with a fair prospect of success. If they can they 
certainly will. 

Wliereupon the Times said nothing. 
The events ol the spring of 1865 took place. Sherman 
succeeded in reaching the sea-board with " all of his army 



THE FRENCH PEACE • PKOPOrilTION. 45 

that he could save," and thereupon tlie 2^^mes trumpet be- 
gan to give an uncertain sound, which a certain sturdy, 
steady voice from Manchester proclaimed. Whereupon 
came this shufflinG: answer. 



Mr. Bright tells us that the English Press was mistaken on 
American affairs and is trying to back 6ut of its mistakes. We 
admit that we have been mistaken about American affairs, but it 
has been in a sense exactly the contrary to that which he imputes 
to us. We certainly have greatly under-estimated the resources, 
the courage, and the tenacity of the South. When the war began 
we did not expect the South would be able to offer so determined 
a resistance to its opponents ; we thouglit that the immense forces 
which the North was able to bring into the field must necessarily 
break through the weaker line of their opponents. [" Hear, hear" 
from a gentleman who has lost his memory, and groans from some 
gentlemen who lost their money.] We could not anticipate — and 
we_are not ashamed of having been deceived — the long series of 
bloody battles which have compelled such a succession of ISTorth- 
ern Generals and armies to yield to the prowess of a weak and 
despised enemy. We thought that the Southern line would have 
been speedily broken through : that the principal cities of the 
Confederacy would probably fall into the hands of the invaders, 
and that Northern armies would have been able to traverse almost 
at will the territories which supply the materials of rebelhon. 
These things are now beginning to come to pass, only they have 
come to pass much later and in a much less degree than we had antici- 
pated ; but then we thought and still think, that the real dangers 
and difficulties of the contest will begin. These territories are too 
vast to be occupied, and the elements of rebellion they contain are 
too rife to be left to themselves. They may be penetrated in every 
direction, but we do not see how they are to be held or subdued. 
It remains to be seen whether we are wrortg in these anticipations. 

Well, it has been seen. What a laugh of scorn this 
passage must have provoked from honest John Bright ! 



46 HEBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 



THE MONEY QUE^TIOK 

Upon no subject is our cousin John more oracular than 
tliat of finance. When he speaks upon finance he sum- 
mons the world to listen to the words of wisdom. He 
understands this thing ; other people don't. But of all 
the ignorant simpletons in the matter of money manage- 
ment, John knows none so ignorant and so foolish as 
Jonathan. That isn't the worst of it; he is a thieving 
scoundrel. Borrows your money and buys your goods, 
and then says, not that he can't pay but that he won't pay, 
that he don't owe you anything, — repudiates, in fact. Then 
having told Jonathan this, he wonders what the fellow 
finds to take offence at, and why he won't listen to good, 
fi'iendly disinterested advise. Perhaps this was John's 
strongest point during the war. He began to hold forth 
upon it early and he continued his outpourings even until 
the end. He was instant in season and out of season. He 
gave us precept upon precept and precept upon precept, 
here a little and there agreat deal ; and he bid largely for our 
good wall by telling the world and us that if we borrowed 
any money we should be sure to refuse to pay it ; that our 
war debt would be repudiated as surely as it was incurred 
That we had paid our only war debt, principle and inter- 
est in a few years when we were only 8,000,000 of people, 
and that no creditor of this Republic ever lost a dollar 
justly due him, or failed to receive it on the day when it 
was due, and that on the contrary President Jackson was 
obliged to say to France and Spain, "pay up this debt you 
have been shirking so long instantly, or fight," and then 
they paid, — that these were the facts was of course of no 
consequence whatever. John had decided that Jonathan 



THE MONEY QUESTION. 47 

was "utterly ignorant of the first principles of political 
economy " and also that he was a " d — d repudiating 
scoundrel," and that is the end of the law. Therefore did 
the Times and the Saturday Review^ the two wisest and 
most influential organs of British public opinion, predict 
sudden financial ruin for the United States, and continue 
their prophesyings, mingled with denunciation, for four 
years, announcing weekly, during that period, the speedy 
coming of the financial crash which never came. 
The Saturday Remew thus led ofi*. 

(From the Saturday Review, June 15, 1861.) 

Tliere are still stronger reasons against a war on a great scale, 
inasmudi as it can only be carried on with a great standing army. 
It is easier to bluster about half a million of men than to feed and 
pay 100,000. Tlie people of the United States are little accustom- 
ed to taxes, nor will it be easy to incur a large debt which would be 
repudiated as soon as it became necessary to provide for the in- 
terest. If the sacrifice were undergone, the Republic would have 
provided itself with a master, in the form of an alien body of vet- 
eran mercenaries. The rank and file of the regular army will be 
Irish, with, perhaps, an admixtui^e of Grermans ; and, as Americans 
are well aware, no race is either braver or more indifferent to con- 
stitutional forms. 

But great as the losses may be to the invester in prairie consols 
or Arkansas tooth-picks, it will be nothing to the fate that awaits 
him who dabbles either in Federal or State stocks contracted for 
war purposes. His money will be as inevitably lost as ]f it were 
sunk in the Suez canal or the Atlantic cable. [What is the pres- 
ent opinion of Sir Henry de Houghton, Mr. Beresford Hope, Mr. 
John Laird, ]Mr. John T. Delane and others their fellow bond- 
holders upon this subject ?] Spasmodic efforts will doubtlessly be 
made to pay the interest of such loans during the continuance 
of the war ; but the result is assured, and may be summed up in 
one word — repudiation. — Ibid. 

The Liverpool Courier of August 7th, in the same 
year thus followed suit. 

Now the Federal Government have determined to levy a regular 
army of 150,000 men. How long will it take to discipline such a 
host as that with the means at the disposal of the Cabinet ? Where 
will money be procured, for no European capitalists were inclined 
to lend even at 7 per cent, to a confederacy which has once legal- 
ised " repudiation." [What do they call it in Liverpool when a 



48 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

man deliberately tdi^tbc tiling that is not, for the purpose of injur- 
iri<' iiis neighbor?] ^^^IWbre defeat it was difficult to procure a 
loan of £80 000,0:J0, after defeat it becomes impossible. Add to 
tbis the loss of huart, the loss of prestige, the doubt and hesitation, 
f:)nsequent on such a failure. If at last a regular army of 150,000 
rhould be enrolled, we may well ask, how long would the North- 
ern states constitute a republic ? [Not a day, sir, not a day !] 

Whatever may have been thought before, it is now plain that 
lie Southerners can resist, and that the war ^all be protracted. 
There is an end to Mr. Briglit's dream of a quick solution of the 
difficulty. Tlie Southerners would now accept nothing less than a 
full acknowledgment of their independence and of their right to 
seced?. The war may be carried on for years, but this must be 
the result at last. 

Of one thing John Ball was sure, that we would not 
submit to taxation by "the central government." To 
pay any thing was foreign to our habits ; to pay taxes, al- 
though for the discharge of our honest debts, something 
not to be thought of. 

(From the Saturday Review of August 10th, 1861.) 

It has now become certain that Secession cannot be trampled 
out on the instant ; and it teas always certain that the NoHhe^ii 
States icould never he able to conquer tlie South in a balanced and 
prolonged war. 

There will be more difficulty in raising money than enlist- 
ing recruits ; and there is reason to hope that the Lon- 
don money market will be inaccessible to borrowers icho icould in- 
evitably repudiate the obliyation, while they would probably contrive 
a ivar as a 'pretext for their refusal to pay . 

What an incomprehensible people these Yankees 
are, that they don't like, — in flict, actually resent, the re- 
iterated assertion, not that there are dishonest men among 
them, as there are among all people, but that they are a 
nation of rogues and scoundrels ! — murderers, too, who 
will deliberately get up a fight and kill their creditors 
by the thousand, to rid themselves of the necessity of 
paying their honest debts ! What wonder that the Sat- 
urday Revieic^ of all papers, should express its surprise at 
"the bitter feeling against Great Britain in" — sweet 
phrase ! — " Federal America ! " 



THE MONEY QUESTION. 49 

(From the London Times, .June 24, 1862.) 

We had and, besides, have still the veiy gravest doubts as to the 
ability of the Central Government to enforce npon so many almost 
independent States tlie ])aynient of a heavy amount of taxes. We 
thought we saw reason for believing that the West, poor and warlike, 
would think it had done enough in breaking the long line of the 
Confederates, and would refuse to bear its share in the heavy 
general burden, and we are confirmed in this view by remembering 
how very Hght is the taxation to which America has hitherto sub- 
mitted, and how totally new and miprecedented is the notion of 
the payment of a direct tax to the Central Government." 

So decided the London oracle; and yet the people here 
most perversely and absurdly insisted npon being taxed, 
clamored because Congress held back from taxation, and 
yielded cheerfully to a system of taxation that entered 
their very households, and soon drew fi'oni them nearly a 
million of dollars a day. A most contrary people ! never 
will do as they are desired ! 

(From the London Times, Januar}"^ 31, 1863.) 

The Americans are doing their best to amuse and instruct the 
world . [But it so happens that neither the amusement nor the 
instruction were all on one side.] We have no need of amphithe- 
atres of gladiators, of wild beasts, of burning Christians, and all 
tlie other amusements of the jaded old Roman ; for we cannot un- 
fold a paper without the description of some desperate contlict be- 
tween all the varied means of human destruction. We ought to 
be obliged to people who undertake at such a sacrifice to relieve 
the tedium of civilized existence. 

This is the respectful and considerate way in which, 
the leading journal of the British empire speaks of a war 
which was deciding the fate of a great Republic, and the 
freedom of a race, and to which a people of its own 
blood and language was giving* the flower of its man- 
hood and the sum total of its wealth ! And the Yan- 
kees don't like it ! Singular people ! 

The Americans have taken a plunge into the infinite. They are 
breasting the waves of the Atlantic in the very maddest attempt 
that ever wearied madman. They have infinite territory, infinite 

3 



50 KEBEl'^llii^ AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

people, infinite water power, infinite corn and cotton, infinite 
destiny, infinite brag ; the other day they broached an infinite res- 
ervoir of oil, they have now tapped infinite credit. They feel as 
the youth does with a constitution, a fortune, a character — every- 
thing whole and untouched. He can never get to the end of them ; 
at least it is a very long time yet. Bystanders kiiow better. We, 
too, know better how it is faring with the Americans — with the 
Federals even more than the Confederates, inasmuch as the for- 
mer trust most to money, the latter to men Thus far, 

we are assured by the Federal financiers that things go on won- 
derfiiUy as usual, and out of the very range of the war it could not 
be guessed that the country was being drained of its men and 
money, that the armies had been decimated and the soil ravaged. 
This may continue long, except that deaths and wounds, reaching 
up to this time to about a quarter of a million in the aggregate of 
both sides, must tell very seriously on the general wealth and 
prosperity. But any body whose property consists in paper mon- 
ey or in fixed interest, such as that of the state debt or guaranteed 
dividends, must suffer very great loss and be reduced to utter 
poverty. The material resources of the country will remain not 
only untouched, but in many cases relieved by the diminution of 
fixed outgoings. Land, its produce, houses, mines, ships, and, 
above all, the strong arm and the active mind, will be worth as 
much as ever, till the catastrophe comes to such a pass as to dis- 
courage enterprise, destroy confidence, and so far dissolve society 
itself, weaken its power of mutual aid, and place its prizes beyond 
certain calculation or reasonable hope. These miseries and worse 
are before America ; for the destruction of mutual confidence means 
much ivorse than can be conceived by any American in his present 
crazy mood. Every rise in the premium of gold, slight and unob- 
trusive as the little figure or fraction may seem, is a step in the 
'downward direction — to what depth is probably past all expression, 
calculation, or conception. " 

The extracts from the London Times thus far given in 
this volume are chiefly taken from leading articles in that 
paper, the editor in chief of which is shown by recent rev- 
elations to have been pecuniarily interested, to the amount 
of £10,000. in the downfall of the Republic upon whose 
affairs he set himself before the British public as a fair 
and honorable adviser. But hardly less important than 
its leading articles are the well known City articles of 
that paper, which for several years past have been written 
by Mr. M. B. Sampson, who was similarly interested, as 
the same records show, to the amount of £15,000 in Con- 



THE MONEY QUESTION. 51 

federate bonds, for which he was to ijay nothing. Under 
these very peculiar circumstances, what views he present- 
ed of affairs in this country will appear by the following 
and subsequent extracts from his articles. 

SOME CHEERFUL PREDICTIONS. 

(From the London Times, City Article, August 28, 1864.) 

The premium on gold in New York has again declined, the last 
quotation being 25.5. The confidence of the people in the financial 
manipulations of Mr. Chase can be compared only to that which in 
this country was concentrated upon Mr. Hudson during the railway 
mania. 

So long as the expenditure of the country is in excess of its 
annual production, the march in this direction is inevitable. No- 
thing can avert it, although many circumstances may delay it, and 
there can be no question that Mr. Chase has shown singular 
adroitness in the latter process. Of course, to any persons finan- 
cial experience, even at New York, the end must be perfectly plain ; 
[Certainly, of course, manifestly, without a doubt, inevitably, can't 
be otherwise, because don't you see, and ah — ah — all that sort of 
thing ?] but Mr. Chase has stifled the warning that these persons 
would by their operations otherwise give, by causing a prohibition 
t6 be enacted against buying or selling gold for delivery at a future 
date. In London tliere are many merchants who would at once 
order their New-York agents to commence operations of this de- 
scription if the freedom which all other cities enjoy existed in that 
quarter. But, such not being the case, there is nothing that can 
cause the market to take Its natural course so long as the Govern- 
ment can procure enough gold for the remittance hither by each 
steamer. The diminution in our demand for grain this year will 
greatly accelerate the final collapse, but If the people can be kept 
from panic there may still be several months of happy infatuation. 
[That was cheering ; and even now to look back upon it is en- 
couraging.] If it were possible to ascertain the amount of specie 
that existed in the country at the commencement of the drain, the 
period of dls-illuslon might be fixed with almost mathematical pre- 
cision [Why " almost? " Why this unbecoming modesty ? Why not 
with mathematical precision, to a minute ?] This being impossi- 
ble, all that the commercial world can do is to wait and watch. One 
thing is important to be reniembered, — namely, that all the 
triumphs the North may gain can but make Its financial affairs 
worse. With a peace founded on an agreement for separation, the 
accounts for the past might be made up, and a definitively reduced 
expenditure nilght he adopted for the future. With the South to 
be held by force of armies, a subjugated province, all hope of a 
return to economy must forever be abandoned. 



52 REBEL ^RAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 



^i^g 



ANOTHER OPINION. 

(From the London Times, City Article, July 13, 1864.) 
" A partial rally in United States bonds occurred yesterday and 
some large amounts were again taken for the Continent. The re- 
covery was consequent on the reported resignation of Mr. Chase, 
the Secretary of the Treasury. Looking at the point to which he 
has brought the Federal finances, it is only natural that a rumor 
of his retirement should create an improved feeling, but whoever 
may be his successor, only one course is open to arrest the present 
ruin, and there seems as little prospect as at any former time of 
its being adopted. A cessation of the war is the sole condition on 
wliich then the faintest hopes of anything short of an utter finan- 
cial breakdown can be based. Unless Mr. Lincoln means peace, 
there is no use in his changing his Finance Minister. For provid- 
ing the means for the expenditure of £200,000,000 a year, no 
one could excel Mr. Chase, who has adroitly contrived to get as 
large a proportion from it as possible from foreign admirers. 

Well, Mr. Lincoln did not mean peace ; and yet within 
less than one year from the publication of this article 
United States bonds were worth more in London than 
they were in New York. But there was " a cessation of 
hostilities." Certainly, they ceased very manifestly and 
decidedly one day last April ; and peace ensued ; and as 
this was Mr. Lincoln's purpose, he did " mean peace " all 
the time ; and so the Tunes'' city article was sensible and 
sound, and a good guide to the British capitalist after all. 
As good as the oracle which said "-Aio te Momanos vin- 
cere posseP Truly if we could have been slain by the 
jaw bone of an ass, this Samson would have put an end 
to us. 

We began upon this topic with an extract from the 
Saturday Review of June 1861 ; we shall conclude with 
one from the same candid and courteous paper published 
February 8th, 1865, nearly four years afterward. Some 
worthies are never weary in well doing. 

THE FINANCES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

(From the Saturday Review, February 8, 1865.) 

Perhaps the most striking circumstances ni recent accounts from 
America is the great coolness with which the people of the Noith 



THE MONEY QUij]STION. 53 

contemplate the insolvency of tlieir Government. They know 
that the old boast about patriotic loans of indefinite extent has col- 
lapsed before enough had been raised in this shape to meet a sin- 
gle quarter's expenditure. [The rogue means that this should 
be taken as evidence of his sagacity ; but we know that he had 
secret information from Mr. Chase, and Mr. Fessenden, and ]Mr. 
McCulloch.] They know too, probably better than we do, that 
the often-repeated assurance that taxes shall be imposed sufficient 
at least to cover the interest on the debt will never be realized. 
Like its promises to pay, the promises to tax of the Federal Gov- 
ernment will be redeemed in paper. [Plainly this knoAvledge was 
also derived from the bureau of Internal Revenue at Washington ; 
the receipts of which at the time when this article was written were 
only about $1,000,000 a day.] An abstract resolution in flivor 
of raising by taxation a revenue of not less than 30,000,000?. has 
been almost unanimously voted by Congress, but among the fi- 
nancial arrangements which are said to have met with fiivor, there 
is included a condition that direct taxation shall be postponed as 
long as possible. That it is unconstitutional, if not illegal, is the 
smallest of the objections to it. The real difficulty is that an 
income-tax would not be paid, [Never ! Never ! ! NEVER ! ! !] and 
unless half of the 600,000 men of the Federal army are to be em- 
ployed, like Austrian soldiers, in collecting taxes, all the votes 
that can be passed may fail to extract the longed for dollars from 
Western fiirmers, or even froin the traders of the Atlantic sea- 
board. [Certainly ; the few straggling dollars that are obtained, 
we all know to our sorrow, are extorted at the point of the bayo- 
net by hireling soldiers who accompany the tax-gatherers.] In 
a country like the United States, it is one thing to vote a revenue, 
and another to levy it. Voluntary loans and taxes are indeed ad- 
mitted on all hands to be incapable of supplying the requirements 
of the war, and yet we find the commercial journals of New York 
discussing the financial crisis more cheerfully than we should speak 

of a deficit of two or three millions Once for all, the capital 

of the country may thus be made to produce the means of provid- 
ing the army for a month or two, and then there will be an end 
of the resource. [What a prophet ! Where is DaniePs glory 

now ?'] It is very difficult to believe — in spite of the tall 

talk about the Union — that financial difficulties on so enormous a 
scale will not put a speedy end to the aimless crusade of the 
Northern States. [Alas ! it is ended.] 



54 EEBEL B^JHiWAND BRITISH BLUSTER. 



MILITARY MATTERS. 

The other of the two points upon which John Bull was 
strongest, was of course the military aspect of the war. 
The opinions which he delivered upon finance we 
have already .had an opportunity of re-examining under 
the light of recent events. A perusal of the following 
passages, extracted chiefly from the great British author- 
ity upon all subjects, will show that he was no less saga- 
cious and penetrating in his judgment upon military 
events than he was upon the less striking, but hardly less 
important, movements by Avhich our Treasury provided 
supplies for the War Office. 

THE MILITARY PROSPECT OF THE GOVERNMENT 

(From the London Times, September, 1861.) 

Were England at this moment to announce to the world its in- 
tention to make the speediest possible conquest of France, or were 
France to make the same declaration as to England, the world would 
laugh at the egregious folly that had inspired the design and prompt- 
ed the boast. The world would grant that, supposing either people 
to be infatuated enough, and obstinate enough, it could inflict enor- 
mous and irreparable injuries on the other, but only at the cost of 
equal injuries to itself. .... Now, that is the case of the two 
Confederacies across the Atlantic, where the surviving half of an 
effete Federal Union has undertaken to reduce the other half to its 
Federal duties. We say that this is the case, but before we pro- 
ceed a step further, it is neccessary to observe that the case of the 
Northern Americans is in some important respects more ditHcuit 
than ours would be. They have to protect more than a thousand 
miles of land frontier, including one closely beleagured position 
surrounded by foes or ill-affected adherents. Speaking the same lan- 
guage as their foe, they have no means of excluding spies from their 
lines, or even traitors from their ranks. • [True.] They have to 
make a standing army and a tieet. [True, and we did it, John.] 
They have to learn the first elements of tactics, and even military 
discipline. [But you forget the invaluable lessons we received by 
every steamer.] They are without soldiers, or oficersto com- 
mand and to train them. [Lamentable destitution, wasn't it, John ?] 



MILITARY MATTERS. 55 

Lastly, war, which changes its character according to circum- 
stances, establishes special rules of probability for different locali- 
ties. The one rule established by all American warfare is that the 
advantage is on the side of the defences Om' offensive operations 
always failed against fortifiefl positions, against breastworks thrown 
up in a night, against forests full of an invisible foe ; against heat, 
hunger and thirst ; against the ever imminent flank attack ; against 
the certainty that every step diminished the number, the strength 
and the munitions of our own men, and increased those of the en- 
emy. [Therefore, of course the Yankees must fail ; and so they 
did John, so they did.] The present war might, for its incidents, 
be a chapter in our own disastrous wars on that soil. 

There is only one enterprise which can be compared to this, 
and is the First Napoleon's gigantic, but infatuated attempt upon 
Russia. If any one will attempt to compare the means of the 
Federalists with those of Napoleon, he will find them far inferior 
in every respect ; while there is no doubt that the Southern States 
are far more able to defend every point, every position, every 
line in their territory, than the Russians were in theirs. [Good 
boy ! What is your present conclusion from those premises ?] They 
have mountainous ranges instead of steppes"; they have a popula- 
tion accustomed to carry arms, and only too glad to use them ; 
they have railways, and abundance of food and other necessaries 
of war. They are evidently superior in generalship, and in the 
social organization best adapted for war. [Quite invincible, you 
see ! A nation of Spartans led by Mars himself!] 

We are in a condition to offer advice. [Singular condition for 
you to be in, John. Never was heard of before.] We can ad- 
vise the Northern States of America, as we can advise the legiti- 
mate Princes and the despotic Courts of Europe. Let the states- 
men at Washington only do what England has done before a hun- 
dred times, and what all Europe has done, is doing, and will still 
do. Let the Northern States " accept the situation,'' as we did 
eighty years ago upon their own soil ; as Austria did two years 
ago at Yillafranca and Zurich. Let them count the cost before 
they march forth to drive half a million armed men a thousand 
miles across their own comitry into the Gulf of Mexico. Let them 
consider whether they can do what Napoleon cOuld not do in the 
plentitude of his power, with many times their number, their stores, 
their credit, and above all, their military skill and experience, his 
school of Generals, and liis si^pply of veterans. What they pro- 
pose to do and be is not only to be as good as the Southerners, or 
a little the bette?% but overwhelmingly superior. Arc they? Is 
not this an overweening opinion of themselves ? Can they drive 
the Southerners like a flock of sheep, smoke them out of their own 
nests like wasps, ferret them like rabbits, and bag them like 
game ? Of course not. [Ask General Lee, and General Johns- 
ton, and General Kirby Smith.] 



56 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

AFTER THE BATTLE OF CHAXCELLORSVILLE. 

(From the London Times, Aiay 19, 1883.) 

The only chance of his success seemed to be that Sedgwick 
should be able to operate on Lee's 'right flank and rear before 
Hooker was crushed. We can anticipate no more hopeful tidings 
from the Government at Washington having kept back the news of 
the result of jNIonday's battle. If it should have been unfavorable, 
we do not wonder at their hesitating to proclaim so great a calami- 
ty. If Gen. Hooher is defeated, the last chance of success, at least 
in Virginia, is gone. The only General who has shown any enter- 
prise or activity will have been hopelessly beaten. It is clear from 
the accounts of the battle that the German corps had entered solely 
for the sake of the bounty money, and were not to be depended upon 
even in the first attack. What would be the chance of raising a 
new Army of the Potomac Avith the only remaining General beaten, 
his troops demoralized, none but foreigners willing to volunteer, 
and those worthless at the first assault ? 

There's a situfition for yoii ! The last chance in Vir- 
ginia gone, the only remaining General beaten, none but 
foreigners willing to volunteer, and those worthless! 
And yet these perverse Yankees actually had tlie impu- 
dence to find one more general named Meade, and after- 
wards another named Grant, nay, three besides, named 
Sherman and Sheridan and Thomas, and to volunteer 
themselves, and actually to succeed even in Virginia 
when they had not a chance. Incomprehensible and in- 
sufferable people, those Yankees! Really "a. nuisance 
among the nations ; " especially to people who had £10,000, 
£15,000, £50,000, or from that to £180,000 dependent on 
their failure. 

(From the London Times, May 25, 1863.) 

What was the Army of the Potomac good for if it was to sit 
interminably on the north side of the Rappahrmock, without so 
much as attempting the invasion of Virginia and capture of Rich- 
mond for which it had been raised ? An answer to this question 
had been given by General McClellan who told his countrymen 
in plain words that the march to Richmond was impracticable, in 
as much as the Confederates were masters of the country, and 
able to defend position after position against any force of invad- 
ers. The Federals possessed no armv strong enough to cut their 



MILITARY MATTERS. 67 

way to tliG Confederate capital through siicli troops as would op- 
pose their passage. Thisnvas plain sense but it was not very pal- 
atable. It involved soaisthing like a confession that the South 
could not be conquered and that the war was hopeless, for how 
were the Confederate States to be subdued if the single State of 
Virginia could not be recovered [Of course it was im- 
possible to subdue the rest first and Virginia last.] What 
McClellan thought must happen to any army attempting the en- 
terprise, has actually happened to the army of the Potomac. What 
Hooker said could be done he found it impossible to do. He dis- 
covered that the enemy of whom he had spoken so lightly was in 
reality stronger than himself, able to disconcert his plans, check his 
advance and drive him back headlong to his quarters. This is 
precisely what other commandGrs had predicted, but what Hooker 
had refused to believe. ^He is nov^ probably less incredulous, but 
will the Government and people of the North have their eyes 
opened to the truth? They cannot take Piichmond. They have 
made the trial, with a succession of armies under a succession of 
Generals and from a variety of points. They have tried caution 
and audacity, strategy and recklessness in turn, and they have 
{iiiled in every effort alike. The result teaches Europe no more 
than it knew before, but if it should impart a conviction to the 
Federals that they are indeed engaged in a work beyond their 
strength, it may conduce to a termination of this hopeless war. 

The similarity of the style in which the Richmond and 
the London newspapers spoke of the military movements 
against the rebellion is very remarkable. If we did not 
know that the following passage, annomicing the beginning 
of Grant's movement upon Richmond, was from the 
Hickmond JExaminer, we might be in doubt whether it 
was from the London Times^ the Saturday Remew^ or the 
London Morning Herald. 

grant's combinations eidiculed. 
(From the Richmond Examiner, March 30, 1864.) 

Amongst other intelligence convoyed to the Yankee papers by 
their Washington correspondents, we find this : 

" Agents of the Sanitary Commission at the front have for the 
past few days, been making requisitions for stimulants, &c. on 
their principal oihcer here." When there is a great demand for 
stimulants for the Army of the Potomac, we may abvays know 
tliat it is expected to fight soon. That army has consumed more 
whiskey than ammunition since May last ; and, indeed, our men 
can always snuif an approaching assault, if the men happen to be 

3* 



58 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

to windward, by the odor of old rye tainting the breeze. They 
are not for the future to rely upon this ©idication with implicit con- 
fidence ; because it is said that one main element of Grant's confi- 
dence this time is, that he is always to wait until the wind shifts ; 
that as deer-stalkers keep to leeward of their game, so Grant ex- 
pects to stalk the Army of jSTorthern Virginia, 

In the meantime Thomas and Stoneman may have adventures 
before they join hands with Sheridan ; and as to Sherman, he has 
*' taken to digging." [Poor Sherman !] It seems to be his fun- 
damental maxim that he is not to fight ; and we have seen that 
the moment he is attacked he begins intrencliing. At that game 
his progress northward, in the face of so wary an indefatiga- 
ble an opponent as Johnston, is likely to be slow : it will scarcely 
be sufliciently advanced within those ' ' ten days " which Grant 
allowed Richmond-to surrender. Such, however, is the combination 
which we have now to face and to baffle, and to do it within a month. 
If it break down anywhere, as there Is very good hope, then the peril 
for this year will be over ; and it will be for Lincoln and Seward to 
consider a new plan for approaching Richmond, and also to invent 
a neAv, great General to carry into effect , For both Grant and 
Sherman must then be shelved : their ideas of conducting a siege 
will be pronounced not wide and grand enough for the Yankee 
nation. Their combinations were not extensive enough — their 
several approaches did not converge from sufficiently distant 
points. Next year the siege of Richmond must be commenced 
by opening trenches at Key West in Florida, and Corpus Christi 
in Texas, and digging through the continent so as to meet and co- 
operate with another advance commencing from the upper waters 
of the Arkansas River. [What scathing irony! But whom does 
it scathe ?] , 

grant's failure Ajstd the end of all things. 

(From the Morning Herald, May 13, 1864.) 

We know almost enough of the campaign in Virginia to declare 
Grant's advance upon Richmond a failure, and to express a confi- 
dent hope that the last fiery trial of the Southern Confederacy has 
been safely passed. 

From other parts of the Southern States the news is scarcely less 
cheering to the Confederates. The advance upon Atlanta is a 
failure. [Utter,] Johnston's position is said to be too strong for 
attack. [That's the reason he left it.] We shall probably learn in a 
few days that here also the attack has been made and repulsed. 
From the Red River the news continues most disastrous to the 
Federal arms, and gold in New York is at lb premium. How will 
the New York mob submit to the draft. And where are the soldiers 
to enforce it .P [Nowhere.- And that point is settled.] 



MILITARY MATTERS. 69 

grajstt a failure. richmojStd can't be taken. 

(From the London Times, August 22, 18G4.) 

To the war in Virginia the Federals devoted their best army, 
their main stores of material, and their most determined Commaad- 
er. The force which advanced southwards at the beginning of 
May was the strongest force ever equipped by the North, and it 
was in excellent hands. If Grant was not an accomplished Gen- 
eral, he was an intrepid and resolute soldier, proof against discour- 
agement, and bent upon winning at all hazards and by any means. 
jSTevertheless up to this hour he has been completely foiled by the 
superior skill of his antagonists ; and the resources at his command 
are now to all appearance so nearly exhausted that it is hard to 
see what success greater than a safe retreat^i-emains within his reach. 
He has kept his promise of "fighting it out all the summer," but 
without the result which he anticipated. Through three long months 
he has marched and countermarched, manoeuvred and fought, until 
no new device or strategy seems left to be tried, but the end is^ 
that Ilichmond is safe while Washington is menaced, and that Lee 
is master of the field. It is true that the campaign is not yet over, 
and that war is fiiU of uncertainties ; but the strongest partisans of 
the Federal cause can hardly expect that the Virginian expedition 
will be anything but a failure. This result, too, would carry with 
it a most comprehensive moral. If Grant and his army could do 
nothing, it is scarcely conceivable that any other Northern army 
could do better, and the conclusion must be plain that the great 
object of the Federals — the capture of Richmond — is absolutely 
unattainable. 

Quite unattainable. In fact, never has been attained. 
Rumors to the contrary, were chaff thrown to the swine 
of " an American democracy." 

As the war approached its close the British papers be- 
came weekby week more brilliant upon the situation of 
military affairs. The events are so recent and the opinion 
expressed as to the course which they would, i. e., which 
they should take, that no remark is necessary to guide the 
reader's attention to the full enjoyment of the latter. 

GENERAL GRANT's UNFORTUNATE OPERATIONS. 
(From the London Times, September 8, 1864.) 

" It is an unfortunate characteristic of General Grant's opera- 
tions that the more closely they are viewed the less satisfactory they 
appear. The second report of one of his battles is invariably 



60 REBEL BUAGAND BRITISH BLUSTER. 



worse than the first, maMng his losses gj^eater and his achievements 
smaller than they were originally supposed to be. What was his 
design at Deep Bottom seems to have beea unknown even in Kew 
York ; but we are now assured, after the usual iashion, that at 
that place and on the Weldon Railway he lost in a single week 12,000 
men. The results, meanwhile, are so absolutely unimportant that 
General Lee treats the Federal army with perfect unconcern, and 

.' not only despatches large reinforcements to Atlanta, but marches 
away himself, if we may believe the report, at the head of a 
formidable corps. The Confederate commander is now said to be 
in the Shenandoah Valley ; and it is reasonable, therefore, to look 
for important intelligence from that quarter. The Southern army 
already in those parts, under the command of General Early, com- 
prises some 30,000 of l#ie best troops in the service of the Con- 
federacy, and if these are reinforced by other divisions under 
General Lee himself, and opposed only by Sheridan and his levies, 
it seems natural to anticipate some decisive operations. [Well, Phil, 

^Sheridan took care that such reasonable anticipations were not 
disappointed. To permit 30,000 of the best troops in the service 
of the Confederacy, to say nothmg of other divisions, to come out 
against him and " his levies" for nothing, would not have been 
handsome. He took care to have some decisive operations ; and the 
Times was right.] iSTothing, indeed, can be more extraordinary 
than the position to which aifairs have been brought by the course 
of the campaign. General Grant has reached Richmond, has 
skirted it by^ flank movement, has left it behind him, and is now 
engaged in some unintelligible operations a few miles south of a 
small town, itself some miles south of the Confederatecapital. [Quite 
uninteUigible : in fact not to be comprehended by the British mind 
and therefore to be swept out with other muck into the dust-heaps.] 
General Lee, after first protecting Richmond with his army, now 
apparently considers it able to protect itself, and has marched away 
to the North, with a view either of threatening \Vashington or of 
carrying the war into the Federal States. [Why, " ov'''? Why the 
modest doubtful disjunctive conjunction ? We all know that Rich- 
mond protected not only itself, but Charleston, Savannah and 
Wilmington ; and that General Lee took Washington and overran 
*'the Federal States."] 



♦ THE TIMES OWN WAR CORRESPONDENCE. 

One of the chief glories "of the Times during the war, 
was its correspondents. Their letters were not only so 
long and so frequent, but tliey gave its readers such full 
and exact information as to the course of events ; they 
were written in such a candid and courteous spirit ; and 
above all they forecasted the immediate future with such 



MILITARY MATTERS. 61 

sagacity, that by reading tbe Times witli sufficient credu- 
lity you might generally know exactly Vv^hat would not 
happen. Of tlie two correspondents, one in New York 
the other in Ric^hmond, it is difficult to say which bore 
the palm ; but perha})S the following performance by the 
latter worthy, in reference to the campaign which be- 
gan in the middle — Atlanta, and left off at both ends, 
— Nashville and Fort McAllister, may be regarded as the 
most dazzling success the Times achieved. It is dated 
October 8, 1864. 

(From the London Times' own Richmond Correspondent, Oct. 8, 1864.) 

It must be known to your readers before the arrival of this let- 
ter that President Davis has just returned to Richmond, after a 
visit to Georgia. The result of his husiness is that General Beau- 
regard is put iu command of the whole of the South-west of the 
Confederacy on tliis side of the Mississippi, just as General Lee is 
in comliiand of Virginia and North CaroHna. It must be owned 
that the arduous task assigned to General Beauregard is ''pericu- 
lo see plenum opus alece ;'''' but my belief is that, of all men in the 
Confederacy, he is, after General Lee, the fittest for the place. 
Moreover, there attaches to Beauregard, as there at- 
tached to Stonewall Jackson, a kind of electric popularity which 
is of wonderful value to a general who commands mercurial and 
undisciplined soldiers like these Confederates. His name will be 
to Hood's army a tower of strength ; the advantage of consulting 
with him on all strategical (juestions will be greatly prized by 
Hood ; and I anticipate from the union of Beauregard and Hood 
as many advantages as are popularly attributed in the North to the 
union of Grant and Meade. But the visit of Mr. Davis to Geor- 
gia has elevated the morale of Hood's army in other ways 

Above all things, he has raised the spirit of Hood's army ; he has 
taught it to entertain misgivings as to tlie policy of always falling 
back, and has reconciled it to its present manly and enterprising 
commander. Nor is the reward which this hitherto unsuccessful 
army is likely to reap far distant or long deferred. [Truthful pre- 
diction ! That army got its deserts v^ithout any unreasonable 
delay.] I have the best authority for saying that the boldest move 
which has as yet been attempted in this war — the move by which 
Hood tJirew his army from the south to the north of Atlanta, and 
fixed his claws upon the line of Slierman's communications — 
is of Hood's sole origination. [AA^'hich is a comfortable assurance 
for General Hood.] It remains to be seen whether, in the event 
of Sherman's adopting almost the only course which seems open 
to him — I mean in the event of his attacking Hood behind his in- 



62 REBEL BRAGT AND BRITISn BLUSTER. 

trencliments — the much abused Confederate army of the West 
will strike a blow which, if successful, will do more to end the 
war than dozens of such battles as were» fought in 1861 and 18(52. 
It is my belief that Hood's army, inspirited by the manifest sagaci- 
ty which is disclosed in the move which it has just made, will 
prove itself worthy of its vigorous young commander, and will 
gain for itself and for him a reputation which will eclipse the 
comparative failures of three aiid a half years. [Eclipse them ? 
Certainly it eclipsed them. The failures of the previous three 
and a half years Avere not to be named in comparison with those 
by which General Hood gained the reputation with which he closed 
the war.] If ever there was a war in which Vaudace, Vaudace, tou- 
jours Vaudace should be the motto of Southern generals, it is the 
war in which we are here engaged. The two most successful gen- 
erals of this war — Stonewall Jackson and Lee — are the rashest; 
and the present promising and daring move of Hood will prove 
(unless I am mistaken,) before October has closed, that it is only 
by rashness that telling and staggering blows can be dealt. 

The details of the movement by which Hood described well-nigh 
three-fourths of a circle, and swung his army round Sherman, are 
described to me as having been very skillfully executed. [Quite 
correct. No doubt they were skillfully performed ; for they were 
performed just as General Sherman meant they should be. Could 
there be higher praise ? ] 

But still it would not do for the Kew York man to 
allow himself to be entirely eclipsed ; and therefore this 
brilliant passage in his letter published November 1, 1864. 

(From the London Times, November 1, 1864.) 

The situation in the Shenandoah Yalley does not promise any re- 
sults more hkely toact favorably for Mr. Lincoln. General Sheri- 
dan lost 7,000 men in the obstinate battles of the 19th ult., 
was so crippled as to be unable to follow up his partial success, and 
acts at this moment strictly on the defensive. He in no way threat- 
ens the Confederates, but guards the valley as well as he can, lest 
Generals Longstreet and Early should resume offensive demon- 
strations against Washington. The truth as regards General Sher- 
man on the conterminous borders of Alabama, Georgia, Tennes- 
see, and Mississippi is not so easy to ascertain, but it looks as if 
General Hood had enticed him from Atlanta, drawn him on a wild 
goose chase toward Chattanooga, cut him off from his base of sup- 
plies, and left General Beauregard to pounce upon Atlanta at the 
fiivorable moment, and compel the surrender of the scanty gar- 
rison left to hold it under General Slocum. 



GENERAL SHERMAN'S " RETREAT." 63 



GENERAL SHERMAN'S " RETREAT." 

If a New Y'ork correspondent must not be cast in 
the shade by one at Richmond, still less must editori- 
al wisdom be made as foolishness by the inspiration of 
any correspondent ; and the opportunity for an awful 
display of sapience arose when Sherman turned his back 
on Hood and Atlanta, and began that famous " retreat " 
through Georgia to the sea-board. 

(From the London Times, December 7, 1864.) 

The Southern commanders, after the fall of Atlanta, appear to 
have thrown themselves on General Sherman's communications, 
and to have beheved that by operating on the long line which con- 
nects him with the North they could force him to abandon the ad- 
vantage he has gained, and to retrace his steps through a wild 
country, where he might be attacked with every possible advan- 
tage. With this view it is said that General Hood has taken up a 
position more than 100 miles to the north-west of the position oc- 
cupied by General Sherman. The effect upon that bold and able 
commander does not appear to have been exactly that which was 
originally contemplated. 

No ; not as one might say absolutely, strictly, precise- 
ly, accurately, to the very letter, mathematically to a 
hair, or as some people say, to an azimuth ; but on the 
contrary and with most incomprehensible and incredible 
perverseness, slightly, or somewhat, or rather, or inclining 
toward what was 7iot originally contemplated. 

(From the London Tvnes, Dec. 7, 1864.) 

We have said that in his invasion of Georgia, General Sherman 
has left beliind liim in the north-west General Hood, who it is nat- 
ural to suppose will not be slow to follow in the tbotsteps of his 
retreating antagonist. A few days' delay before Macon or Augus- 
ta, or before any of the natural obstacles which must be encoun- 
tered in a march through a wild and trackless country of between 
three and fou^hundred miles, would suffice to bring Hood, pes- 



64 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

sessed of much better information, up with Sherman imder cir- 
cumstances which must almost necessarily^ place the latter between 
two fires. 

It will be strange, indeed, if the army of General Sherman should 
arrive before Savannah, after such a march conducted under such 
difficulties, in condition to attack and storm a town so well fortified 
and so strenuously defended ; and, if not, it is difficult to conceive 
a more embarrassing position than that General Sherman will oc- 
cupy, with a wasted and weary army, a strong town in his ^ front, 
and an enemy fighting on his own ground in his rear. Ibid. 

Poor Sherman, what a situation he was in ! And yet, 
perverse, conceited Yankee that h^was, he did not know 
it, nntil he saw this article. What a blessing the Thnes 
newspaper was to Yankee generals ; and how invaluable it 
must have been to British merchants ! 



(From the London Times, Dec. 20, 1864) 

His march is a repetition on a larger scale of the "great stra- 
tegic movement " by which IM'Clellan transferred his army, after 
his defeat before Richmond, to Harrison's Landing, where it found, 
" safety," and the Federal gunboats and transports. But the dis- 
tance between the York and James rivers is not, as in Georgia 
measured by hundreds of miles. M'Clellan executed his manosv- 
re successfully, but the campaign itself was a failure. Sherman 
has undertaken a more desperate operation of the same kind. He 
must march to the sea, as no Federal flotilla can ascend the Savan- 
nah to aid him. His difficulty is one of frequent recurrence in 
mintary history, ancient and modern. An invading army must 
keep open a line of retreat in case of being out-mancevred or over- 
powered, or run the risk of destruction or surrender, either fatal 
to the expedition. The "ten thousand" Greeks were led by 
Xenophon from the plains of the Euphrates to the shore of the 
Black Sea, but the enterprise was undertaken by the wreck of an 
army. The retreat itself is celebrated in history, but it told the 
world that the invasion of Persia was a ruinous failure. It is pos- 
sible that Sherman may save as much of his army as he can march 
to the shore of the Atlantic ; l)ut not the less will the invasion of 
Georgia have been signally defeated. 

Sherman did save just exactly as much of his army as lie 
could march to the shore of the Atlantic. And so tlie mili- 
tary critic was right again. Bat whether the invasion of 
Georgia was therefore signally defeated, hefias not since 
decided. 



GENERAL SHERMAN'S " RETREAT." Q5 

(From the London Times, Dee. 20, 1864.) 

To the Northern public the sudden niovenient was represented 
as a great military operation, intended to continue the campaign 
by a bold plunge into the enemy's country, to attack Augusta, and 
destroy the powder works of the Confederate Government. The 
capture of tiie city of Savannah was equally part of the plan. Co- 
operation in an assault of CharlestoA from the land side was even 
suggested as possible. [It was thought of. But then the Charles- 
ton people, in spite of their talk about the last ditch, did not wait 
for the co-operation.] The real purpose of Sherman was much 
more simple, yet dlffi^-ult enough to carry out successfully, as he 
has discovered. It was to extricate his army from an untenable 
position by a rapid march to the sea coast and the aid of the Fed- 
eral Heet. In the first ])art of his expedition he was so far fortun- 
ate that as he advanced he found no enemy before him. But the 
Southern troops now begin to appear, and it is by actual, and not 
successful, encounters with them that his position is made clear. 
.... In addition to the difficulties presented by the natural fea- 
tures of the country, the temper of the population must also be 
considered. South Carolina, always dissatisfied and restless under 
the old Federal Constitution, was the leading State of the present 
disruption. It was the first to declare the Southern Confederacy, 
and the first to commence the actual war by the bombardment of 
Fort Sumter. The successful defence of that fort and the city of 
Charleston itself against the repeated attacks of the Federal lleet 
has encouraged the spirit of the people, and no Southern State is 
more confident of the issue of the struggle. Taking the country 
and the population together, it is impossible to predict for General 
Sherman a progress through it so easy as he has found his march 
to its frontier. 

Even the Northern press cannot persist in representing Sherman's 
desperate march as a deliberate and skilfully-calculated military 
operation. We believe it was not a calculation, but a necessity. 
Siierman had no choice, except of difficulties, long before he quit- 
ted Atlanta. 



Well, for a chooser of difficulties commend us to Gen- 
eral Sherman. 

As usual, Richmond and London were completely at 
accord. They took the same view of Sherman's move- 
ment, — spoke of it in the same terms. They both had 
"taken stock" in the rebellion. But the Richmond peo- 
ple did not pretend to be neutral, or the Richmond edit- 
or to be impartial. The following sweeping declaration 
was made in a leading Richmond p;iper, almost a month 



bb REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

after the appearance of the foregoing judgments in the 
Times. ^ 

GOOD NEWS FOR THE REBELS PREDICTED. * • 

(From the Richmond Whiff, March 8, 1865.) 

Sherman is played out. If our readers do not hear or read of 
any good news from South Carolina, it is a non sequitur that 
there is none to communicate. 

In a few days they will hear where Sherman is, and what has 
befallen him. Let everybody be patient. Sherman's opportunity 
to establish a military reputation has fled, and we will soon hear 
of his discomfiture and disgrace. 

The last " opinion as was an opinion " upon the milita- 
ry aspect of the wm* appeared in the columns of the Lon- 
don 3Iorning Herald in the letter of its New York cor- 
respondent, the worthy successor of " Manhattan," who, 
writing under appropriate date of April 1st 1865, thus 
delivered himself upon Grant's last movement before 
Petersburg. 

(From the Morning Herald, April 1, 1865.) 

The movement had scarcely begun when fighting occurred ; its 
result, we are told, is a Confederate repulse. Be this as it may, the 
elements are now doing battle for the Confederacy. Scarcely had 
the hosts of Grant abandoned their encampments when a heavy 
rain storm set in, which has continued without intermission ever 
since. Grant's position is one of extraordinary peril. If he has 
made a mistake, it will, in all probability, result in fearful disaster 
to the Federal army. If he has not made a mistake, and the Con- 
federates are falling back upon Lynchburg, aU the damage he can 
inflict upon the foe will not compensate him for his trouble, or the 
risks he runs. It will consist at the most of the capture or the 
killing and wounding of a few soldiers in the Confedf:rate rear 
guard, while every step he takes really throws him further and 
further from his base, and endangers the safety of Wasliington. 
Let Grant once place the Confederate army between his force and 
the national capital, and Washington is lost. If he follows Lee to 
L\Tichburg, Washington is in equal danger ; for the Confederates 
will have the shortest and least obstructed road into Maryland 

Mr. Seward, with much pomposity, has gone down to 

City Point, inviting several foreign ministers to accompany him to 
witness the final overthrow of the " rebellion," and the capture of 



GENERAL SHBRMAN'S '* RETREAT." ' 67 

Richmond. If Grant is defeated, the Secretary will proba]:)ly return 
to Washington in a state of complete humiliation. And Grant's 
defeat is by no means improbable. The army of the Potomac never 
yet made a successful movement. By taking the initiative, and 
abandoning his breastworks, Grant gives to Lee an enormous 
advantage. A Federal defeat, under the present circumstances, 
means the destruction of the greater portion of the Federal army. 

There is no cooperation between Sherman and Grant 

Grant's movement, then, is at variance with his original plan of 
combination. It was forced upon him — he believed that the 
Confederates were evacuating Richmond, and he wished to strike 
them when they were outside their eartliworks. If he has commit- 
ted an error, and a battle takes place, his defeat is almost certain. 
The most probable sequel of the matter will be that the Federal 
army will return to its old encampments, " the objects of the re- 
connoissance having been fully accomplished." 

Before this letter was well on its way across the Atlan- 
tic Richmond was in the possession of that General who 
was in such " extraordinary peril ; " and before it was laid 
before the sympathetic eyes for which it was written, Gen- 
eral Lee had laid down his arms. 



68 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 



FEELING TOWARD DEMOCRATIC GOVERN- 
MENT. 

That a contempt for democmtic government, and con- 
sequent ill will toward one under w^hich a nation had 
risen to a notable height of prosperity and power was one 
of the chief motives, if not the chief motive, for the course 
pursued by the British sympathizers with the rebellion 
was often manifested during the war. It a|;)peared in such 
remarks as those in the following paragraph from the Lon- 
don Times in regard to the course Avhich our Government 
was expected to take, but which it did not take, upon the 
Trent affair. 

If we had to deal with any other than a democracy we should 
have no doubt upon the matter. It would be impossible for any 
jNIonarch to deny a reparation Avhich all the civilized world has de- 
clared to be just, for he would feel his personal honor tarnished by 
such a war. To a democracy the same appeal cannot be made. 

Thus the Times set up the honor of such perfectly 
candid, truth telling gentlemen as the Czar Nicholas, Em- 
peror Francis Joseph of Austria, and the Emperor Louis 
Napoleon, against that of Abraham Lincoln, who told his 
countrymen that he w^ould resign his office rather than 
at their bidding break his word to one negro slave, and 
who lost not his office but his life chiefly because of his 
good faith in this matter. It would seem as if British ex- 
perience of the value of " the personal honor " of " a 
monarch " in the persons of the three potentates above 
named, — not to go further back into history, might have 
awakened a suspicion that possibly it was not so very much 
higher than that of a mere honest man acting as the rep- 
resentative of a great Anglo Saxon people. But it seems 



DEMOCRATIC GOVBRNMRNT. G9 

quite impossible to convince men who have been accus- 
tomed to regard a monarch and an aristocracy as essential 
elements of any government worthy of the name, that 
a country in which the people govern themselves through 
executive officers of their own choice can be anything else 
than a mere stamping ground of an irresponsible, brutal 
mob, lawless and resistless, and compelling its representa- 
tives to yield to its momentary caprices. Thus speaks 
the Times upon this subject. 

(From the London Times, Dec. 17, 1861.) 

No wonder that Mr. Lincoln, luxuriating in the Paradise to 
which the loill of an unbridled democracy has introduced him, and 
looking forward to a desperate struggle with England, brought 
about apparently by the same cause, should feel a pious horror of 
those who venture to think such experience not conclusive, and the 
existing Constitution of the United States a little short of perfec- 
tion ! We have nothing to say for Slavery, but if Mr. Lincoln's 
description of the South is indeed true, — if she is figliting to eman- 
cipate herself from the Mind tyranny of a degraded mob, from 
elective judges and elective governors, — he has given his antago- 
nists a better title to European sympathy than they have hitherto 
possessed, and thrown upon his Government the stigma of fighting 
to impose upon others institutions which have already brought it to 
the verge of ruin. 

The Tory journals of course took this same ground, 
and in language hardly less studiously offensive. The 
Morning Herald is spoken of by many persons as an in- 
significant paper — the mere organ of the Carleton Club 
of London. But in the following paragraph it merely 
13uts in another shape the feeling which in the passage 
just quoted found expression in the ablest, most widely 
read, and most influential of all British journals. 

(From the Morning Herald, Feb. 4, 18G2.) 

Whatever may have been the original merits of the quar- 
rel ; — It is scarcely possible to doubt that both the 

world at large and the inhabitants of the Southern States in par- 
ticular, are likely to be great gainers by the permanent disruption 
of the Union. The Americans had become a nuisance among na- 



70 REBEL Bx^lAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

tions. The enormous growth of their population, the prodigious 
extent of their territory, inspired them with a wholly disappropri- 
ate idea of their own power, dignity, and national capacity. 
They had bulhed Austria, England, and even France, and had not 
been punished — they natm'ally believed that they might continue 
to commit offences against international law and courtesy with the 
same impunity. The secession of the South completely alters 
their position. They have now a powerful neighbor and a vulner- 
able frontier. They are stiU strong enough to repel aggression ; 
but they can no longer kave that overweening confidence in their 
own strength, that sense of perfect security fi'om consequences, 



This about a people who have never interfered with 
any other nation ; who have only asked that others should 
not insult and brow-beat them ; who have never troubled 
themselves about the balance of power, or set themselves 
vi^ as the guardians of civilization ! 

How nearly some of the best educated and ablest wri- 
ters for the British press can approach to a just apprecia- 
tion of the national characteristics and the public policy 
of our Republic, is shown by the following extract from 
an article in the Saturday Remeio in which the conse- 
quences to us of our war against the Confederate slave- 
holders are gravely considered. 

(From the Saturday Review, Aug. 31, 1864.) 

A first rate general at the head of such an army as will be 
necessary to conquer and subjugate even a fraction of the seceding 
States will be incomparably the most powerful and popular man 
in America ; and it will he e^itirely hy Ms own choice if Tie ever sub- 
sides into jyrivate life Meanwhile the danger that threatens 

their favorite democratic institutions are contemplated by Ameri- 
cans with an easy indifference which is rather startling 

Nothing in America seems to follow the ordinary laws of human 
nature ! 

Fudge, O wise man, fudge ! Fudge, not so much on 
account of your most ridiculous blunder in regard to the 
successful General; but because it is useless to waste 
words with a man who does not see that here in this re- 
public the laws of human nature have for the first time 
had something like freedom of operation. 



SPIRIT AND PURPOSE OF THE REBELLION. 71 



SPIRIT AND PURPOSE OF THE REBELLION". 

The spirit and purpose of the rebellion might be illus- 
trated in a general way by multitudinous extracts from 
newspapers in its interest, and from public documents 
issued by the government of the so called Confederacy, 
in addition to those given above ; but the following pas- 
sages, consigning General Butler and his officers to the 
gallows, and all the negroes in the United States army to 
the same fate, justifying Quantrell's murderous raid into 
Kansas, recommending that our soldiers, taken prisoners, 
should be starved and frozen to death, and proposing the 
re-establishment of the slave-trade, answer the purpose as 
well as if they were more numerous. 



ME. DAVIS'S PROCLAMATION IN REGARD TO GENERAL BUTLER, 
NEGRO SOLDIERS AND OFFICERS IN COMMAND OF THEM. 

First — That all the commissioned officers in the command of 
said Benjamin F. Butler be declared not entitled to be considered 
as soldiers engaged in honorable warfare, but as robbers and crim- 
inals deserving death ; and that they and each of them be, when- 
ever captured, reserved for execution. 

Second — That the private soldiers and non-commissioned officers 
in the army of said Butler be considered as only the instruments 
used for the commission of crimes perpetrated by his orders, and 
not as free agents ; that they, therefore, be treated when captured 
as prisoners of war, with kindness and humanity, and be sent home 
on the usual parole that they will in no manner aid or serve the 
United States in any capacity during the continuance of this war, 
unless duly exchanged. 

Third — That all negi'o slaves captured in arms be at once de- 
livered over to the executive authorities of the respective States to 
which they belong, to be dealt with according to the laws of said 
States. 

Fourth — That the like orders be executed in all cases with re- 
spect to all commissioned officers of the United States when found 
serving in company with said slaves in insurrection against the 
the authorities of the different States of this Confederacy. 



72 REBEL BRAO AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

In testimony whereof I have signed these presents and caused 
the seal of the Confederate States of 4-i^erica to be affixed thereto, 
at the City of Richmond, on this 23d day of December, in the year 
of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two. 

By the President, JEFFERSOX DAVIS. 

J. P. Benjamin, Secretary of State. 

NEWSPAPER COMMENTS. 

On tills proclamation the Richmond Despatch has the 
following comments : 

" The proclamation against Butler and his associates comes up 
to the full measure of public expectation. The deliberation with 
which the conclusions of the Executive have been arrived at gives 
additional solemnity and dignity to his purpose. The brute and 
his minions will discover that it does not follow because sentence 
against an evil work is not executed speedily that it is forgotten or 
forgiven. 

THE RAID ON KANSAS JUSTIFIED 
(From the Richmond Examiner, Sept. 1863.) 

The accounts of Quantrell's retreat are as Httle worthy of belief 
as those of his conduct at Lawrence. According to these accounts 
his command scattered, and eighty of his men have been overtaken 
and put to death in cold blood. Tliat Lane and his horde of mis- 
creants have indeed seized and murdered eighty citizens of Mis- 
souri in cold blood, is quite probable ; but that they were Quan- 
trelPs men is not at all probable. The expedition to Lawrence ivas 
a gallant and perfectly foAr blow at the enemy, but as it fell heavy 
upon him, and as the population of Kansas is malignant and 
scoundrelly beyond description, no doubt can be entertained that 
it will be made the excuse and pretext of every species of atrocity 
in Missouri, until the confederate leaders do what they ought to 
have done, and what they are falsely accused of doing. A resort 
to lex talionis in its most decisive form is the only hope of safety 
in Missouri, as it soon will be everywhere. 

STARVING OF PRISONERS RECOMMENDED. 

(From the Richmond Examiner, Oct. 20.) 

The proper authorities are debating the question of the removal 
of the tAvelve thousand Yankee prisoners from Richmond to some 
other point not so circumscribed for food, and where it can be had 
at less expense and at greater abundance, without alleeting the 
necessities of the people. Danville, or some location on the James 
Kiver Canal, is spoken of. We are glad the question has been 



SPIRIT AND PURPOSE OF THE REBELLION. 73 

started, and the citizens of Richmond will do all in their power to 
help them to a decision. 

The Yankee Government, under the laws of civilized warfare and 
the cartel, are entitled to these men, and if they will not take 
them, let them he put ivliere the cold loeather and scant fare will thin 
them out in accordance loith the laws of nature. 

OPENESTG OF THE SLAVE TRADE RECOMMENDED 

The Richmond Enquirer of November 10th, 1863, no- 
ticing some remarks in JJ Opinion JSfationcile^ upon Mr. 
Slidell's ijinwi.llinpjnoss to discuss the subject of slavery, 
said : — 

Neither is this a matter of temper, and pride, and passion alone. 
Far from it. Let the Opinion know also — and let it take what 
further comfort and aid it can from the avowal — that the Confed- 
erate people calmly and considerately prefer their social and indus- 
trial institutions to those of any other land — that our consciences 
are easy about them — that we believe those institutions supply us 
with that just and humane balance between capital and labor, 
which society in Europe so deeply needs, and which the Editor of 
the Opinion and his associates sought in their various theories of 
communism, but never found and never will. Fina,liy, let him un- 
derstand that if our system of labor needs now, or, should come 
to need, what they call ' amelioration,' we mean to be the sole 
judges and the sole administrators thereof; although, indeed, as 
at present advised, we can conceive no amelioration at all, save, 
perhaps, in the copious importation of more negroes from Africa. 

The foregoing passages fully bear out Mr. Cobden in 
his assertions in the following passage taken from a speech 
at Rochdale, November, 24, 1863, and the event of the 
war has entirely justified its faith in the strength of vir- 
tue and freedom. 

(From Mr. Cobdeu'a Rochdale Speech.) 

This is a war to extend and perpetuate human Slavery. It is a 
war not to defend Slavery as it was left by their ancestors — a 
thing to be retained, and to be apologized for. It is a war to es- 
tablish a slave empire, where Slavery shall be made the corner- 
stone of the social system, where it shall be defended and justified 
on scriptural and ethnological grounds. I say God pardon the 
men who in this year of grace, 18o3 should think thf.t such a pro- 
ject as that should b3 crowned with fiuccess. Now yea know 
4 



74 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 



why I have from the first never believed it possible that the South 
could succeed, and I have not founded that faith merely on moral 
instincts which teach us to repudiate the idea that anything so in- 
fernal shoidd succeed. No. It is because in this world the viHues 
and the forces go together, and the vices and ibealcness are insepar- 
able. It is, therefore, I felt certain that this project never coidd suc- 
ceed. For how is it ? Here is a conmiunity with nearly half of the 
population slaves, and they are attempting to fight another com- 
munity where every working man is a free man. 

* * * I say it is an aristocratic rebellion against a democrat- 
ic Government. That is the title I would give to it. In all his- 
tory, when you have had the aristocracy pitted against the people 
in a physical force and conflict, the aristocracy have always gone 
down under the heavy blows of the democracy. 



SAGACITY. 75 



SAGACITY. 

John Bull seems to try so hard to trace the course of 
public opinion in the United States, and he has such a 
very wise head upon his shoulders, that it would seem as 
if with all liis effort he must be able to understand what 
so very simple and outspoken a people as we are, mean. 
What his success is in a general way, we know ; what it 
was in regard to our views upon the rebellion, the follow- 
ing passages will show. 

THE IRRESISTIBLE PEACE MOVEMENT. 

(From the London Times, Special Correspondence, Aug. 21 y 1864.) 

The revulsion of feeling in favor of peace is one of the most ex- 
traordinary of all the incidents of the war. It would seem as if 
the idea had long been latent in everybody's mind, and that there 
only wanted some one to give it authoritative expression, to send 
it round the country with the all-subduing power of a mania or an 
epidemic. 

In nine days from this time — i. e., on the hi\\ of September, if 
there be no armistice in the interval, — Mr, Lincoln must enforce, 
or begin to enforce, his last call for half a million of men. It is 
understood that his friends and supporters, who desire his re-elec- 
tion for their own purposes if not for his or the public benefit, have 
urged upon him the expediency of letting the matter drop until 
the election shall have been decided, and that Mr. Lincoln is un- 
convinced by their reasoning. 

If these statements of the President's feeling and intentions be 
correct he must either accept the popular idea of an armistice and 
a convention, or risk the perils of an insurrection in attempting to 
enforce a measure, the exigencies of which the rich and well to 
do throw upon foreign mercenaries and negroes, and which the poor 
detest and abhor, and loillJigM in the streets to resist. The indica- 
tions are that the question will be decided at Chicago. If Chica- 
go be for war there will be a draught ; if Chicago be for peace, 



76 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. . 

as there is every prohahility that it loiU he, not simply by an over- 
ivhelming majority, hut hy unanimity, it is difficult to see how the 
Administration can run a risk of" a consc^ption, which, under the 
circumstances, would be as unnecessary in itself as it would be dis- 
tasteful to all classes. 

(From the London Times of Sept. 8th, 1864.) 

A broad view of this kind is all that can be taken of these re- 
markable events. The more secret views of parties are of course 
hidden from us. We can only tell at this moment that the party 
or aggregate of parties desirous of suspending the war and sub- 
stituting amicable negotiation is strong enough to compel others, 
with more or less sincerity, to accept its policy. It seems by no 
means improbable that the policy of an armistice will be adopted 
even by Mr. Lincoln himself, so that in any event the Presidential 
election would bring the close of hostilities for the present. Then 
follows a mighty question : — Will the war ever be renewed ? If 
the South should refuse, on any terms, to reenter the Union, will 
the Northern people, who now admit that the war has brought 
them no good, recur to that arbitrament in hopes of better fortune ? 
Perhaps a majority of the would profess that intention at the pre- 
sent moment ; but to us, on tliis side of the Atlantic, it seems very 
difficult to imagine that' two Governments which have had sucli 
bitter experience of war should ever deliberately renew it after a 
taste of peace. 

For the Jirst time, however, during the whole of this contest, ice 
are brought loitliin sight of its probable end, and it is curious to re- 
flect loith what suddenness the prospect has at last arisen. Beyond 
doubt the convictions which it expresses must have long been gain- 
ing strength in the minds of the Northern people, but still they 
found httle utterance till the other day. That they are now pro- 
claimed so loudly is due to the double opportunity presented by 
the Presidential election and the acknowledged failure of the last 
campaign. 

In the meantime the political campaign is far more eventful and 
invested with far more immediate interest. There the issue can- 
not be delayed, nor the contest indefinitely prolonged. A fcAV 
days, indeed, will now bring us a most important, if not decisive, 
piece of intelligence. On the 29th of August a Democratic can- 
didate for the Presidency was nommated at Chicago, and that 
nomination will, in all probability, govern the election, and with 
it the course of the war. It may be observed, too, that as we 
have war news at this moment up to the 27th ult. we may regard 
it as certain that neither Grant nor Sherman nor Farragut could 
have achieved anything likely to influence the proceedings of the 
Convention in favor of the war party. The support which j\Ir. 
Lincoln and the partisans might possibly have derived from the 
capture of Atlanta or jMobile is now past hoping for, and the reso- 
lutions of the great political meeling will have been taken on the 



SAGACITY. 77 

assumption tliat the campaign of 1 864 will end as unprofitably for 
the North as those of the years procecling. That last chance for 
the llepu])licans has been lost, and tlie misgivings of the party may 
be clearly discerned in the proposition now reported, that Mr. 
Lincoln and General Fremont should retire together, and make way 
for some new candidate for the Presidency more popularly accepta- 
ble than either. Everything now tends in the direction of peace, 
or, at any rate, towards the suspension of war ; and the Ameri- 
cans appear to be embracing this new policy of negotiation with 
the same impulse which first hurried them into civil conflict. 

It must not be supposed that the Northern people have yet accept- 
ed the idea of Southern independence, or relinquished the hope of 
restoring the Union. All they have learnt at present is that the 
Union is not to be restored by war. 

THE 'miES WISHES NOT TO BE MISUNDERSTOOD, AND IS NOT. 

(From the London Times, September 14, 1864.) 

The Chicago Convention has not only declared the principles 
on which the Democratic party is prepared to act, but has demand- 
ed, in the name of the people, that negotiations shall be imme- 
diately instituted for the suspension of arms. An Armistice at 
once, a Conference as soon as possible — these are the cries now 
resounding through the States of the North ; and unless they can 
be disregarded — which is not easy to suppose — we may relieve 
ourselves from the trouble of further speculations on the events of 
the war. 

We trust the public will admit that they ham not teen misguid- 
ed by our comments on this obstinate contest. The greai fact 
WHICH WE ASSERTED FROM THE FIRST IS 11020 placed bci/ond rcttch 
of controversy. WE SAID THAT THE NORTH COULD 
NEVER SUBDUE THE SOUTH, and the North has now pro- 
claimed the same conclusion. After three years of the most des- 
perate efforts, in whicli no expenditure has been spared and no 
tactics have been left untried, a preponderating section of the 
Northern people have put on record before the world their delib- 
erate conviction that the policy of war is mistaken and. hopeless, 
and that it must be superseded by a policy of conciliation and com- 
promise. 

******* 

The questions now before us are written in broad and unmistak- 
able characters. First, will the actual Government accede to the 
demand expressed by the Chicago Convention for an immediate 
Ai-mistice ? And, next, will the South accept the Armistice and 
enter upon the subsequent Conference on any basis except that 
of national independence? As regards the former of these in- 
quiries, the world has-been much misled if the Democratic party 
is not the strongest party in the Northern States — strong enough. 



78 EEBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

in tlie absence of any unexpected events, to carry in November 
next its candidate for Presidency, and t» impress its policy in the 
interval npoii the existing Administration. It is hardly to be 
conceived that President Lincoln would employ his brief remain- 
ing term of office in counteracting or opposing the declared will 
of the majority of his countrymen. We regard the Chicago Con- 
vention as representing a majority of the people, because it has 
been asserted throughout that the Democratic party, if united, 
could easily outnumber all opponents ; and they are perfectly 
united now. 

As the Times remarked in regard to Hood's attempt 
upon Sherman's communications, the effect in tliis case 
was not exactly what was expected. The Chicago Con- 
vention did not adopt a peace and disunion policy ; and 
nevertheless the nominees of that Convention were beat- 
en as never men were beaten before. What then does 
the thunderer do? It confesses a fact whicli cannot be 
denied, but it seeks to blacken Mr. Lincoln's character by 
impugning the motives of the measures which he took to 
secure a fair election in Tennessee and Louisiana, and to 
avoid the consequences of his re-election by opening a way 
to the denial of the legality of his title as President of the 
entire Union under his second election, as follows. 

The acts of" fraud and of violence which might have been 
found usefld in a close contest proved to be superfluous, except as 
far as they gratified the popular taste for ostensible vigor. ' Mr. 
Lincoln was re-elected by so great a majority of genuine votes 
that he could have afforded to abstain from all irregular arrange- 
ments. No President has been unequivocally the choice of the 
constituency which elected him : but the States which were bound 
as a minority by the lawful election of 1860, are utter strangers to 
a vote taken in their absence in ISGL 

And yet, after a paragraph like this, to say nothing of 
others which have been quoted before, the Times begins 
its very next sentence. 

The spectacle of the troubles in the United States, and the 
blustering menaces of the Northern populace and its leaders, &c. 
&c. &c. (fee. 

Mr. J. B. is of course to liave a monopoly of menace as 
well as of bluster. 



GENERAL BRAG AND BLUSTER. 79 



GENERAL BRAG AND BLUSTER. 

A close examination of the newspapers of the Free 
States discovers that, with the exception of those edited 
in the interests of the rebels, most of them, and in fact 
all of any importance, exhibited what, under the circum- 
stances, was a remarkable moderation of tone during the 
war. They denounced rebellion and slavery with little 
reserve ; but of rebels and slave-holders they said noth- 
ing that was insulting, and comparatively little that was 
derogatory. Of the manner in which the people of the 
Free States were spoken of by the rebel and the princi- 
pal British journals, the following passages are examples. 
They come under no particular head, and may be properly 
ranged under that of General Brag, Bluster, Vitupera- 
tion, and Misrepresentation. 

(From the London Times, Sept. 12, 1861.) 

Yet, both the New Englanders and the New Yorkers are right. 
If the trick be not quickly done it cannot be done at all. It is 
very well for England and France to go on ostentatiously contend- 
ing which can throw most money into the sea, but there are a 
thousand obvious reasons why this will not do for America. This 
golden goose is not to be killed, it must be taken alive ; but the 
process must be very speedy. Even during the short time 
that has elapsed the symptoms are of a very grave character. 
They go to the very existence of society in North America. We 
say nothing to the sacrifice of free institutions, nothing to the sur- 
render of individual liberty, nothing to the establishment of the 
futile precautions of despotism. We do not make a point of the 
abolition of habeas corpus, or the introduction of passports, nor of 
the suppression of obnoxiaus newspapers, nor of the imprisonment 
of ladies suspected of writing postscripts to their letters, and cer- 
tainly not of the numerous cases of gentlemen of unpopular politics 
being made to ride out of town upon a rail. So free a country 
as America can afford to dispense with all the safeguards of indi- 
vidual liberty necessary to a mere monarchy ; and King Mob 
where he is supreme will naturally require the same agents as any 



80 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

single t}Tant. Unfortunately, however, for King Mob while a 
single tyrant can only eat and drink a single bellyful. King Mob's 
hunger and thirst can only be appeased* by many millions of belly- 
fuls. There is poverty in New York, and there is hunger abeady 
in New England. 

And this was written three years and more before the 
insurrection was put down. 

(From the London Times, Nov. 7, 1861.) 

There is no misapprehension as to our opinions. We do be- 
lieve, and shall continue to do so, that the Secession of the South 
has destroyed the Federal Union, and that, to whichever side \^c- 
tory incline, its reconstruction on the old basis is impossible, for 
the simple reason that the Southern States, if conquered, cannot 
be treated as equals in political power to the Northern, and that 
without such equality a return to the former state of things is im- 
possible. We also think that, as revolution is inevitable, it had 
better come in the form which would most speedily arrest the ef- 
fusion of blood. 

There can indeed be no misapprehension as to these 
opinions ; no more than there can be as to the value 
which events have set upon their worth. With the Re- 
public preserved in its integrity, and every commonwealth 
in it standing already on an absolute political equality 
with every other, with the great mass of the people who 
were lately rebels in arms restored to their civil and po- 
litical rights, while those most responsible for the rebel- 
lion are relieved of their political disabilities and of the 
other consequences of their political crime almost as rap- 
idly as they will ask for such relief, such opinions as those 
above quoted are only amusing to their readers. 

(From the Saturday Review of Nov. 12fch, 1861.) 

England may ultimately be obliged to say to the Northern 
States — " Your conduct is so injurious to others as well as your- 
selves — your extravagant and prolonged exercise of the severest 
belligerent rights, and the enormous dimensions which you have 
given to the theory of blockade, inflict so much misery on the in- 
nocent, and cause such intolerable vexations to the commerce of 
the whole civilized world — that the continuance of our neutrality 



GENERAL BRAG AND BLUSTER. 81 

is practically impossible, and we Avill take part with tlic Southern 
Ststes for the purpose of briuginji; to a conclasion a disastrous and 
otherwise interminable war." Even if England, from whatever 
motives of prudence or magnanimity, should pertinaciously refuse 
to take this step, she could not prevent France from taking it, and 
froui being hailed as the peacemaker of the great American con-. 
tinent. 

(From the Saturday Rsoisw of D33. 7th, 1861.) 

Tlie American naval adventurer has plenty of shrewdness, of 
resource, and of that kind of courage which kindles at the jyrosjyect 
of poclceting another person'' s dollars. 

Vv^e have' also rather left out of view the Warrior and her sister 
ship, because, although it might be highly desirable to test the sea- 
worthiness of these A^essels by making them part of a blockading 
squadron, we can scarcely suppose that the American navy would 
approach near enough even to give them a chance of displaying 
their enormous speed. We never heard in the last war that the 
Constitution ran into the midst of our Channel fleet ; and we do 
not expect that any one of her modern sisters will offer herself 
as a customer for the Warrior. The tactics of the American 7iavy 
have always been, and will he still, eniirehj guiltless of rash ad- 
venture. We know well what those tactics would be, and, in the 
deplorable event of war, it will be our own fault if they take us 
unprepared. 

After this was published the naval battle below New 
Orleans took place, resulting in the capture of the city, 
and in which ^dmiral Farragut's fleet dashed into such a 
pandemonium of foi'ts, fire-ships, fire-rafts and gun-boats^ 
as was never seen before, and was victorious ; one ship, the 
Varina, sinking five of her opponents before she sunk 
herself. After this, too, Farragut captured the forts in 
Mobile harbor, standing in the main-top of his wooden 
ship. Yet the Saturday Review wid look in vain for 
any retraction or modification of the above assertions. 

(From a Speech by Mr. Jefferson Davis before the Mississijn Legisla' 
ture, Dec. 26, 1861.) 

I was among those who, from the beginning predicted war as 
the consequence of secession, although I must admit that the con- 
test has assumed proportions more gigantic than 1 had anticipated. 
I predicted war, not because our right to secede and to form a 
Government of our ovm was not indisputable and clearly defined 
in the spirit of that declaration which rests the right to govern on 
4* 



82 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

the consent of the governed, but saw that the wickedness of the 
North would precipitate a war upon us. Those wiio supposed 
that the exercise of this right of separation could not produce war, 
have had cause to be convinced that they had credited their recent 
associates of the North with a moderation, a sagacity, a morality, 
they did not possess. You have been involved in a loar waged for 
the gratification of the lust of power and aggrandizement, for your 
conquest a?id your subjugation, with a malignant ferocity and with 
a disregard and a contempt of the usages of civilization entirely un- 
equalled in historg. Such, I have ever warned you, loere the charac- 
ter istics of the Northern people — of those with whom our ancestors 
entered into a Union of consent, and with whom they formed a con- 
stitutional compact. After what has happened during the last two 
years, my only loonder is that loe consentecl to live for so long a time 
in associcdion ivitli such miscreants, and have loved so much a Gov- 
ernment rotten to the core. Were it ever to be proposed again to enter 
into a Union loith such a people, I coidd no more consent to do it 
than to trust myself in a den of thieves. 

There is indeed a difference between the two peoples. Let no 
man hug the delusion that there can be renewed association between 
them. Our enemies are a traditionless and homeless race ; from 
the time of Cromwell to the present moment they have been dis- 
turbers of the peace of the world. Gathered together by Crom- 
well from the bogs and fens of the North of Ireland and of Eng- 
land, they commenced by disturbing the peace of their own coun- 
try ; they disturbed Holland, to which they tiled, and they disturb- 
ed England on their return. 

Mr. Davis could hardly be so ignorant of history as not 
to know, that the Hollanders especially* admired and 
praised the Puritans because, during their sojourn in the low 
coujfitries, they had lived such exemplary peacefully lives. 
As to their disturbance of England, he knew well that to 
that we, as well as the mother country, owe the freedom, 
the happiness, and the prosperity which distinguishes us 
fi-om all other peoples. 

(From the London Times July 9th, 18G2.) 

But what a destiny are these degenerate and insensate people 
preparing for themselves ? They are not shutting themselves out 
from all mankind in order to woi'k out some philosophic dream of 
peace and innocence. They have not even the short-sighted wis- 
dom of the Chinese or tlie Japanese, who, in their happy conceit, 
feared to be contaminated by outside intercourse. These people 
are isolating themselves only in order that they may indulge their 
own fierce vices uncontrolled. "With this object they are reducing 



GENERAL BRAG AND BLUSTER. 83 

themselves to a condition whicli is a warning to the world. They 
have at last actually taken upon themselves a system of taxation 
which is like the cask oi'Regulus, so full of points that no man can 
stand, or sit, or lie in it without being pricked every moment. 

That's the way of course. First abuse the Yankees 
for not taxing themselves; say that they will rather re- 
pudiate their debts than bear taxation to pay them ; and 
.then when they do tax themselves thoroughly, and sub- 
mit to the sacrifice cheerfully, abuse them for doing what 
you said they would not do. 

(From the London Times July 9, 1862.) 

At home no man's life, or liberty, or property is secure, for how 
can hfe or liberty be secure in a country where the Plabeas Corpus 
Act is suspended indefinitely, where citizens have no redress against 
unlawful imprisonment, and no available means of obtaining a pub- 
lic trial ; and how can property be secure when money is no longer 
a thing of intrinsic value, and when confiscation and taxation are be- 
coming words of similar meaning ? This is the happy Union which 
the Americans are now making for themselves, and to which they 
expect that, when it is completed, all mankind will Hock. They 
have but to add to it, as they are now doing, the abnegation of all 
the comforts of civilized life, and they will soon have to negotiate 
a Fugitive Slave law with their neighbors to keep their own sub- 
jects within their pale. 

Here's wisdom, here's forecast. The whole world 
knows that as this sort of thing was kept up for more 
than two years after this judgment was pronounced, the 
entire population of the Free States fled to Canada, and 
emigration ceased entirely. 

(From the London Times, July 9, 1862.) 

The broken States of North America seem to be fast approach- 
ing, that point when they_ must become two reasonable nations, 
or go on to anarchy and dissolution. 

So spoke the London Times in the summer of 1862. 
At the same period, in the same month, like words were 
littered by the organs of the rebellion at Richmond, ns 
appears by the following example, from the Richmond 
Enquirer. 



84 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

(From the Richmond Enquirer of July, 1862.) 

When peace has once returned, it i^ill be but a short time be- 
fore a storm will break over the United States, if not as destruc- 
tive to life and fortune as the present war, at least as ruinous to 
national union. Another disruption of territory, another secession 
will break out, severing the grain-growing free trade West from 
manufacturing New England. 

This is truly alarming. How we are going to re-estab- 
lish the connection between the East and West passes 
our humble understanding. If the London Trmes and 
the Richmond Enquirer would just lay their heads togeth- 
er and give us a little sound, friendly, and disinterested 
— yes, that's the Avord, — disinterested advice, we possibly 
might learn something. 

(From the London Times, of July 22, 1862.) 

Will nothing arrest this frantic and suicidal rage? Is there no 
one from whom the American people will listen to the words of 
truth and soberness ? We know that counsels of moderation, ever 
distasteful in themselves, are doubly distasteful when coming from 
us, but we can scarcely beheve that the infm'iated multitude will 
remain as blind to the teaching of facts as they have liitherto been 
deaf to the voice of well meant expostulation. What proof do 
they yet requu*e that they are embarked on a fatal and ruinous 
cause ? Their wealth is turned into poverty, their peace into dis- 
cord, their prosjjerity. into wretchedness; the poioer in which they 
gloried is ejfaced ; society is torn in pieces by its oion members ; 
laio is trampled^ underfoot, and the country is fast falling into an- 
archy, the only refuge from wliich is despotism. We do not scruple 
to say we shall rejoice if the worst anticipation shall be realized — 
not from any ill will to the North, but because we see in the 
failure of its efforts to subjugate the Southern states the only pros- 
pect — we had almost said the only possibihty — of Peace. 

" towser" ag.ajx. 
(From Mr. Roebuck's Sheffield Speech, May 26, 1863.) 

But the North themselves, from the very commencement, so 
determined on empire — they forgot Christianity ; they made them- 
selves a spectacle to the loorld of cruelty, corruption and horror. 
The South stood up, Hke the real descendants, as they are, of 
Englishmen. They said, " We will vindicate to ourselves the 
right to govern ourselves ; we will fight to the death for our inde- 
pendence." And they have fought to the death. They have con- 



GENERAL BRAG AND BLUSTER. 85 

*' 
qnered the jN'ortli. I ask myself if tlic time has come when sur- 
romuliiig nations shall do what we onght to do now — acknowledge 
the South as an independent nation. 

Sympathy is not a part of neutrality. I have no sympathy with 
the North. I think my sympathies ought to go, as they do go, 
with tlie South. They are a gallant people, fighting for their 
inde})endence, and they have obtained it. [Fact, Towser. Can't 
deny it. Bow wow v/ow !] 

From Gov. Letcher's Message to the Virguiia Legislature Jan. 18G0.) 

It is not marvelous, in view of all these things, that we could 
so long have remained in association with such a people. This 
war has exhibited them in their true characters — as murderers and 
robbers. They have disregarded all the rules of civilized warfare. 
Their prisoners ive take are entitled to no considercdion. [This 
explains Andersonville.] If they receive tlieir deserts, they would 
be regularly indicted and ti'ied for violating our State laws, and 
suifer the penalties which those laws annex to their crimes. The 
alliance between us is dissolved, never, I trust, to be renewed at 
any time, or under any conceivable state of circumstances. Let 
us achieve our independence, as it is certain we will, establish our 
government upon a firm and enduring basis, develop our material 
resources, valuable beyond all calculation, and move forward in 
tlie highway of greatness and power and influence. When the 
war ends, a bright and glorious future awaits us. 

But it seems to do nothing else but wait. 

(From the London Times of Feb. 7, 1863.) 

*' Afi:er a recess of six eventful months there is not a single 
statesnuan on either side who believes that the restoration of the 
Union, on the terms of the original compact is possible ; not one, 
who believes that the forcible subjugation of the South is possible, 
Though there is one who declares that if such a conquest was prac- 
ticable, it would only prove the political ruin of America. We 
arrive then at the one conclusion ; that separation on peaceable 
terms and at the earliest moment, is the result which the Iriends of 
America ought to desire." 

Dear, good, disinterested friends ! What a pity they 
were disappointed. 



The spirit in which the slave-mongering editors did 
their work, and the " style of article " that they had 



86 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

reason to believe would find favor with the most cultiva- 
ted polished, and, in their own ridiculous phrase, " aristo- 
cratic " and "chivalric" communities of the slave hold- 
ing States, are exhibited by the following typical articles 
published in the Richmond Examiner and the Charleston 
Mercury in the second year of the war. 

(From the Richmond Examiner , Jan. 26.) 

The custom of denouncing the Yankees is becoming common. 
Under the soft influences of a serenade, President Davis likens 
them to hyenas ; Gov. Letcher, in his mild way, insists that they 
are a heaven-defying, hell-deserving race, and pleasantly consigns 
their Chief Magistrate, Abe Lincoln, to a doom more fearful than 
that of Devergoil. Is it to be wondered that Mr. Lincoln has had 
a trouble on his mind ever since this fearful doom was pronounced 
upon him ; that he is getting gray, and fhids it difficult to tell a 
dirty anecdote every ten minutes during the day ? 

The practice of villifying the Yankees has gotten into the news- 
papers. Editors spend most of their time in concocting diatribes 
against a contemptible race, whose only defect is a prone)iess to 
all that is foul and everythiny that is evil. Why should a people 
so despicable be aspersed ? Even this newspaper, careful as it is 
never to say a word that would disturb the most placid tea-party, 
has been known to speak disrespectfully of a race which the civiliz- 
ed world, with one consent, acknowledges to be ''its last and 
vilest product.'''' One would suppose that creatures so abounding 
in the stenches of moral decomposition, would never be alluded to 
in decent society. But somehow the habit of expectorating upon 
the vermin that swarm the Northern dunghill, has gotten the better 
of gentle natures, and the time drags heavily on the Southerner 
who refuses to indulge himself some twenty times a day in a volley 
of direful anathemas against the Yankees. 

Reflecting persons tell us that this is altogether wrong. We 
should restrain ourselves and be scrupulously polite in speaking 
of these abominable villains. We should recollect that these infer- 
nal scoundrels are human beings, and bear in mind the fact that 
they never lose an opportunity of heaping the most ungracious 
abuse upon ourselves. Nor should it be forgotten that they have 
attained an almost inconceivable perfection and dexterity in lying, 
so that if it were possible for us to match them in billingsgate, we 
would still be at their mercy in the trifling matter of lalsehood. 
We are told by our philosophic friends tliat it should serve to cool 
th^ intensity of oiu' hatred to remember that they are hourly com- 
mitting every cnme known to man, and some Avith which even the 
fiends are not familiar ; that a thrill of dehglit should pass through 
us, when we recall the pleasing circumstance that upward of' a 
milUion of these incarnate demons are hired by the year for the 



■ GENERAL BRAG AND BLUSTER. 87 

sole purpose of murdering us, burning our houses, killing our cattle, 
stealing our slaves, destroying our crops, and driving our wives and 
helpless children into tlie Avaste, howling wilderness, in mid-winter; 
that a genial glow of the purest love sliould pervade our liearts at tiie 
thought that they candidly avow their purpose to exterminate us, to kill 
every one of us, men, women and children, to take our possessions by 
violence ; in a word, to annihilate u.^, to destroy us from the face of 
the earth, so that our names shall no more be heard among men. 

There is another view which should encourage us in the purpose 
henceforth to cherish an affectionate regard for the accursed beings 
at war with us. To the well-regulated mind, the beast hj practices 
of beasts excites no disagreeable emotion ; and it is said tliat the 
scientific intellect finds a world of enjoyment in the contemplation of 
the disgusting utility of the lowest order of creatures. Surely, the 
feast oit' the vulture upon carrion is not reprehensible, and occasions 
in the beholder no special wonder, and never any animosity against 
the bird for gratifying his somewhat peculiar tastes. So the tiger 
that laps blood mid the beetle that gorges excrement, are but Yan- 
kees of the animal kingdom, accommodating the wants of nature ; 
and it were folly to impute to them improper motives in par- 
taking of their ghastly and sickening repasts. It follows that our 
feelings toward the people of the North, the scaraboei and vipers of 
humanity, should be characterized neither by rage or nausea, but 
by a fixed, cheerful, Christian determination to Interpose sufiicient 
obstacles between them and ourselves ; to curb their inordinate and 
bloody lusts by such adequate means as natural wit suggests, and, 
as a general thing, to kill them wherever we find them, without idle 
questions as to whether they are reptiles or vermin. A certain 
calmness of mind is requisite to their successful slaughter. The 
convulsions of passion are out of place when one is merely scalding 
chinches. 

(From the Charleston JUercury.) 

Our women are all conservative, moral, religious, and sensi- 
tively modest, and abhor the Nortli for its infidelity, gross immorali- 
ty, licentiousness, anai'chy, and agrarianism. 'Tis they and the 
clergy who lead and direct the disunion movement. It is a gross 
mistake to suppose that Al)ohtion alone is the cause of tiie dissen- 
sion between the North and the South. . The Cavaliers, Jacobites, 
and- Huguenots, Avho settled the South, naturally hate, contemn, 
and despise the Puritans, who settled the North. The former are 
master races — the latter a slave race, the decendauts of the Saxon 
serfs ! [This assertion, so often made, is certainly the funniest of all 
the slaveholders notions. Names tell origin witliout possibihty of 
error ; the identity of surnames North and South aflfords us no 
occasion of finding an excuse in dilference of race fjr slavehold- 
ing, and for rebellion on account of the loss of an election.] 

We are the most aristocratic people in the world. Pride of 
caste, and color, and privilege, makes every white man an aristo- 



eo REBEL BRAa AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

crat in feeling. Aristocracy is the only safeguard of liberty, the 
only power watchful and strong enough to exclude monarchical 
despotism. At the i!^orth, the progress and tendency of ophiion 
is to pui'e democracy, less government, anarchy, and agrarian ism. 
Military despotism is far preferable to Northern democracy, 
agrarianism, infidelity, and free love. 

Our enemies, the stupid, sensual, ignorant masses of the 
North, who are as foolish as they are depraved, could not read the 
signs of the times, did not dreayi of disunion, but rushed on as heed- 
lessly as a greedy drove of hungry dogs, at the call of their 
ovv^ners. They were promised plunder, and find a famine ; prom- 
ised bread, and were given a stone. Our enemies are starving and 
disorganized. The cold, naked, hungry masses, are at war with 
their leaders ; they are mute, paralyzed, panic stricken, and have 
no plan of action for the future. 

Better, a thousand times better, to come under the dominion 
of free negroes, or of gypsies, than of Yankees, or low Germans, 
or Canadians. Gv^Dsies and free negroes have many amiable, 
noble, and generous traits ; the Yankees, sour-krout Germans, 
filthy, whiskey-drinking Irish and Canadians, have none. Senator 
Yv^ade says, and Seward too, that the North will absorb Canada. 
They are half true ; the vile, sensual, animal, brutal, infidel, 
superstitious Democracy of Canada and the Yankee States Avill 
coalesce ; and Senator Jolmson of Tennessee, will join them. But 
when Canada, and Western New York, and New England, and 
the whole beastly, puritanic, " sour-krout," free negro, filthy, 
whiskey-drinlving Irish, infidel, superstitious, licentious. Democratic 
population of the North, become masters of New York — what 
then ? Out of the city, the State of New York is Yankee and 
puritanical, composed of as base, unprincipled, superstitious, 
licentious, and agrarian and anarchical population, as any on earth. 
Nay, we do not hesitate to say, it is the vilest population on earth. 
If the city does not secede and erect a separate Republic, this 
population, aided by the ignorant, base, brutal, sensual German 
infidels of the Northwest, the stupid Democracy of Canada, (for 
Canada will, in some way coalesce with the North,) and the 
arrogant and tyrannical people of New England, will become 
masters of the destinies of New York." 

Equally modest, elegant and true. Coming from the 
leading journals of the two cities which set themselves up 
as the pinks of " Southern chivalry," how could it be 
otherwise? Most absurd and laughable as this entire 
article is, that notion that the city of New Y^ork is the 
salt and salvation of the State, beats all the rest, etp.ec- 
ially as there are more " low Germans " and " whiskey- 
drinking Irish " in it than in all the rest of the country 
together. 



GENERAL BRAG AND BLUSTER, 89 

(From the Rlchraoncl Whir; of May 22, 1863.) 

It is seen and acknowleil/j;e(l ovoryvvliere that the race so ma- 
ligned and lielittled by the Avriters and speakers wliose v/ords 
reached Europe and formed ophiion there concerning- us, is the 
master race of this continent, with a genius, a civilization a7id 
morality far above and in advance of the upstart and vid{^ar race 
of the North, and with a domain richer in production and capabil- 
ities than any nation on eartli possesses. As these discoveries have 
been made tlie corresponding truth has appeared, that the North- 
ern race were wanting in those elements of character from which 
alone a great people are fonned, and in those resources of nature 
from which national wealth and power flow. Accordingly as we 
have risen in the estimation of tlie trans-Atlantic world, the Yankee 
race has sunk. What we have gained tliey have lost, and more ; 
for tlie falsehoods and arrogance of the past now serve to bear 
down the balances in which they are weighed, uutil they have reach- 
ed the level of universal contempt. 

And at the level which they have reached they are for 
the present contented to remain. But is it not too laiigli- 
able, this everlasting brag about being the master 7-ace, 
when there was jiot a name on their army roll, or their 
civil list, from Lee and Davis down, that was not as com- 
mon all over the Free States as blackberries in August ? 

DOGS vs. YANKEES. 

Mr. J. M. McCue, a member of the Virginia House of Del- 
egates, recently addressed a note to a Mr. Ferneyhough, who 
seems to be a practical tanner, asking his opinion regarding the 
value of dead dogs from several points of view. He received a 
reply, from which the following is an extract. 

" The immense number of useless dogs to the State would go far 
toward furnishing a substitute both for making leather and dressing 
it. The per cent, of all other oils used now in the South, will not 
amount to five per cent. The value of calf and dog skin leather 
for ladies' wear, and for summer boots for gentlemen is nearly 
the same. The value of green calf skins is about double that of 
dogs. The dog skin is tough, soft, pliable and as nearly equal to 
kid as any substitute that can be used. The quanity of oil that 
can be extracted from a medium-sized dog Avill amount to only one 
and a half gallons. The carcasses can then make a value ingre- 
dient to the nitre l)eds of the city, as does the offal of the car- 
casses of horses and cattle referred to. To aid in the all-important 
object of furnishing the Government with nitre similar beds to 
those near Richmond ought to be found at every town and villago 
in the State, and the otherwise worthless carcass of the dog can 



90 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

be made available in consigning to the soil of tlie South as a 
manure that far more worthless and, offensive carcass, viz., the 
Yankee." 

Which is a christian, gentlemanlike, " aristocratic and 
chivalric" view of the subject. 

CFi'om the Richmond Enquirer, May 27, 1863.) 

The first resolution adopted at a late Peace meeting in New York 
read thus : ♦ 

' ' Besolved. That we reiterate our opposition to this bloody, re-* 
lentless, unnecessary and fruitless war. In our opinion it is time 
that the whole American people, North and South, should demand 
of their rulers its immediate discontinuance." 

We fear we must say to these peaceable New Yorkers, speak 
for yourself. They persist in laboring under the mistake that there 
is a " whole American people ; " and that it has certain rulers who 
are carrying on an unnecessary and fruitless war which they ought 
immediately to discontinue. This must be set right. Their rulers 
may be carrying on an unnecessary war, seeing it is a war of in- 
vasion and aggression. Otw rulers are carrying on a war which is 
absolutely necessary, so long as that invasion continues. Their 
rulers can discontinue the war when they please. Ours cannot, 
and dare not so much as hint at its discontinuance. Their war 
may be fruitless ; but ours is bearing and ripening the rich and 
glorious fruit of freedom and separate independence, and national 
dignity, and an honorable fame. 

It is a fruit that we must rear, indeed, with pains and toil, with 
agony and bloody sweat, and water with plenteous blood and tears ; 
yet, we must bring it to perfection, and pluck and eat thereof, or 
die. If we do not garner up that noble harvest for our children, 
better for those children that they had never been born. 

There is no ' ' Whole American people " — there are two — at 
least. And they are all opposed to " this war," but in two oppos- 
ite senses. The New-Yorkers are opposed to our war, of defence 
— we are opposed to their war, of aggression. They and their rul- 
ers can stop when they choose, we and our rulers neither can nor 
will. 

It is not strange that these people, coming of English 
race and trained in those English ways of freedom which 
our forefathers transplanted to this country, should have 
fought so bravely and so well ; but it is strange, or if we 
did not know the influj'nce of Slavery and an unsound 
cause, it would be strange, that as late as 1863, when they 
should have seen that the men of the Free States were at 



\ 

GENERAL BRAG AND BLUSTER. 91 

least as clctermincd as they were, and twice as numerons 
and four times as rich, and were bent upon maintaining 
the Government, they wouhl go on with this ever begin- 
ning, never ending brag. 

(From the Richmond Senti7iel of Sept. 4th, 1863.) 

The North has a stra_o-gle to go through before she can prosper 
and be free — a struggle not with us, but with the elements of 
faction and crime in their own bosom. The cancer is there, and 
it must be cut out — the sooner tlie better. A war with the 
South does not mend the matter. It is not true that to stop the 
war with 'us is ruin to the North. We know not how a sane man 
can thus argue. To attain the firm ground of a prosperous socie- 
ty and a conservative Government, the course of the North is a 
plain one. The war with the South must be stopped, and that as 
speedily as possible. But tliis is only half the work. It is all 
that our interests absolutely require, but not all that humanity 
would teach other countries to do hi their behalf. The conserva- 
tive men of the North must put down and crush out th^ Abolition, 
infidel and agrarian element in their midst, before they can ever 
hope for sohd peace in their own borders. Short of this, there is 
for them no safety ; no hope of order, progress, or rational liberty. 
Let them dally with or postpone this duty, and severe convulsions, 
fir eclipsing the French revolution, are before them. To accom- 
plish this needful work, a revolution by arms is the necessary and 
proper means. Let them set to work at once. Lincoln may be 
apparently strong, but so was Robespierre before the Convention 
plucked up courage to oppose him. One bold effort by the 
Northern Democracy, and his power will topple to the ground, far 
more swiftly even than the edifice of tyranny was constructed. Nor 
will it cost much blood to effect it. It will most certainly not cost as 
nuich as will flow of their ovm blood from submission to a single 
conscription. And, when they get the power in their hands, they 
will do well to show no foolish pky to any of the leaders of this Re- 
imhUcan 2)artu — to Lincohi, Seward, Greeley and the rest. 

One and all they richly deserve the gallows; andif the Democrats 
fail to inflict the doom, in any case, upon these miscreants, the 
world will wonder, and history record it as a lamentable act of 
folly. This done, next let them proceed to establish a stable Gov- 
ernment. 

We all remember the advice, the adjuration, the 
denunciation which we received from the British press 
upon the subject of punisliing Ex-Senator Davis ; but al- 
though the above extract is a fiir sample of hundreds of 
articles published upon i*ts subject in the Slave State pa- 



92 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

pers, who remembers one single article from the British 
journals denouncing this cry for the capital punishment of 
the Anti-slavery leaders. 

" KlRK FROM THE TOOMBS A IMOURXFUL SOUND." 

We find the following letter from Gen. Robert Toombs in the 
last number of the Smnter BepuhUcan : 

Wasliington, Ga., Aug. 7, 1863. 

My dear sir: Your letter of the loth inst., asking my au- 
tiiority to contradict the report that " I am in favor of reconstruc- 
tion/' was received this evening. I can conceive of no extremity 
to which my country could be reduced in Avhich I would for a sin- 
gle moment entertain any proposition for any union witli the Xorth 
on any terms v/hatever. AVhen all else is lost, I prefer to unite 
with the thousands of our countrymen Avho have found honorable 
deaths, if not graves, on the battle-field. Use this letter as you 
please. 

Very truh^ your friend, &c., 

, . R.TOOMBS. 

Dr. a Bees, Americus, Ga. 

At the present moment, in the language of his neigh- 
bors, Whar is Robert Toombs ? Are he with the thou- 
sands of his countrymen who have found honorable death 
upon the battle field ? No, my brethren, he are not. He 
are a layin off on a piazzy with his feet onto the railin, a 
chewing of the quid of rumination, and a laying of his 
plans to re-establish the Democratic Party and circumvent 
the Yankee Abolitionists in Congress. 

the call for three hundred thous.vnd aiEN. 

Lincoln has made various proclamations since the commencement 
of the war, some of which have seemed to the world scarcely less 
unreasonable than those of the Chinese Emperor. 

* * * '* * * * 

There must be an attempt at the facetious in the appeal for 
volunteers in default of which the draft will be made to work again. 
lie knows well that no volunteers are to be expected in the future. 
In fact, it may be doubted whether the Yankee nation, between 
the disgust of those in the array and the servility of those out of 
it, are not reduced to the condition of the volunteer in the Mexi- 
can war, v/ho so bitterly regretted his rashness that he swore never 
to do a voluntary act again. The volunteers will not be forthcoming 
and recourse must be had to the dr^^t. 



GENERAL BRAG AND BLUSTER. 93 

Were this extract to be closed liere it would be impos- 
sible to tell from its style or its purpose whether it was 
published in the London Times or the Richmond Exam- 
iner. But the following paragraph, byits coarseness as 
well as by its boastfulness, shows its " chivalric " origin. 
It is from the Richmond Examiner of Oct. 27, 18G3. 

It is the debased inclination of a people "vvlio so lately arrogated 
the first place among the nations of the earth, and claimed the ex- 
clusive possession of the honor won for a common Government by 
the Southern people, who have forced a Roman's iron sceptre into 

the hands of a brute and a fool. 

• 

THE ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH 

From the Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 3. 

The Atlantic cable is certainly to be tried again. It appears 
that the indefatigable Mr. Cj^rus Field has just come over from 
England to New York, bringing a specimen of the new cable man- 
ufactured by Messrs. Glass, Elliott & Co., and Yankees are large- 
ly taking stock. In other words, that stupid and blinded people 
is actually subscribing money to forge a chain for its own limbs. 
As before, the location selected for the cable places both ends of 
it on British ^romid, and therefore absolutely under British cori- 
trol. It signifies little what may be the constitution and by-laws 
of the company, as to keeping it entirely " neutral," and equally 
accessible to the two nations! All that kind of arrangement is 
good only for peace times ; let war break out between England 
and the Yankees, and the Atlantic cable will be about as neutral 
as the Royal Artillery, and the Channel Fleet and the Horse 
Guards, 

That British statesmen are looking forward to the recovery of the 
American colonies, and preparing to avail themselves of the ex- 
haustion and anarchy which must succeed the present war, to at- 
tain that cherished purpose, is simply a matter of fact. 

It is comfortable to be forewarned — not forearmed, 
that under the circumstances it would have been presum- 
ing to suppose — but to know our flxte and be prepared 
for it before hand. 



(From the Richmond Enquirer Nov. 3.) 

were concerned in all this but tlie fa 

1, we should care but little. We migh 

with complacency while our stupid and troublesome neighbors at 



K nothing were concerned in all this but tlie fate of the said 
Yankee nation, we should care but little. We mifrht even look on 



94 REBEL BRAG AXD BRITISH BLUSTER. 

the North were weaving for themselves the web of their own fate. 
For ourselves, we hoped to be secured by the nature of our insti- 
tutions against that acute malady ofthe American Republics which 
makes them rot at the heart, and fall before they are ripe. We 
hope, with God's blessing, to hold fast our liberties and our laws 
— to pay om' debts and preserve order within our borders, so as 
not to aiford to Kings and Queens those excuses and opportunities 
which the Palmerstons and Xapoleons count upon so confidently. 
Yet it cannot be without some degree of concern that we shall see 
the British power reestabhsh itself on the north bank of the Po- 
tomac. Who are to be our next door nebighors, is matter of 
some moment to us, and we confess that we should prefer the 
Yankees to the English in that situation : they would be a less 
danger to us, simply because they are less strong and less wise. 
Give us ignorant and semi-barbarous enemies to deal with, if we 
must have enemies ; and on the north bank of the Potomac, for 
ages to come, we can look for notliing else but enemies. There- 
fore strongly inchne to hope that this time again the Atlantic Ca- 
ble will break and. fall. Better for us that the Yankee nation 
should run its whole course of its raging fever, and end in the nat- 
ural way than that England should come in, as Louis Napoleon is 
domg for Mexico, to "establish a permanent and responsible Gov- 
ernment, under European guarantees. 

In the meantime it ought to be agreeable to us to reflect that be- 
tween us and Kewfoundland lies the whole mass of the Yankee na- 
tion. 

The English of which is, that about this time, Novem- 
ber 1863, it was plain that all hope of intervention in 
any open, effective w^ay, must be abandoned. 

MOEE BRITISH CAKDOR AND GOOD FEELING. 

(From the London Times of Feb. 1st., 1864.) 

When Mr. M. Gibson gives his unreserved and unqualified hom- 
age to the Federal cause, he knows not of how much of a sort is 
his wisdom and that of the " model Republic," as it used to be 
called the other day. 

As to the feelings of this country, it is true, we are not justified 
in regarding with exvdtation or satisfaction so terrible a calamity 
as that which has befallen so many millions of our own race. No- 
body of common feeling does hear of the mutual slaughter and 
other sufferings entailed by the war, without commiseration. But 
whUe the Republic was overtopping and overshadowing us, while 
it stretched its limbs and raised its tones to the scale of a giant, 
it was impossible but that our sympathy should be weakened. 
We feel for men; not for giants, for monsters, for madmen, for 
those altogether out of our rank and species. But grant that the 



GENERAL BRAG AND BLUSTER. 95 

commercial injury is great, and that the general derangement of 
trade tlu'eatens to inflict even more serious injuries, yet it is im- 
possible to prevent political considerations from intruding them- 
selves, and even making a set-off the other way. Mr. M. Gibson 
cannot, surely demand from us that we should absolutely wish the 
United States to retain their " integrity," or now recover it, so as 
to make a vast political unity of the kind Mr. Bright describes ? 
That would be to wish our own abasement and our own destruc- 
tion. 

Poor John Bull ! You are then abased and destroyed, 
according to your own confession. But we don't see it. 
No one wishes to do you any harm ; certainly not Brother 
Jonathan. And if you will only behave yourself and 
keep a civil tongue in your head, John, you will find your- 
self just as strong and just as prosperous as ever, and a 
good deal more respected. 

THE SAME STORY OVER AGAEST r 

(Erom the London Times, of Nov. 7, 1864. 

Mr. Bright, of course, is not content with declaring his wish to 
see the United States once more as they were, and on the road to 
which the other day they hoped to be. Such a wish, under actual 
circumstances, we can hardly reconcile with belief in a man's 
soundness of mind. The best parallel that occurs to us is a wish 
to substitute the Heptarchy for a Monarchy now more than a thou- 
sand years old. Mr. Bright wishes more. He wishes to see the 
Union resj^ored by the methods now in operation. 

We take Mr. Bright upon his own showing. The wonderful 
image, overlaid with gold, and we know not how many cubits high, 
which he fell down and worshipped, has fallen to the ground and is 
broken to pieces. He wishes to see it once more on its legs, once 
more holding the globe on one hand, and a Victory, with outspread 
wings, on the other; once more with its foot on crowns and mitres, 
sceptres and chains. His disappointment is too much for him. 
He had faith in this. Here was a resting-place in the sea of 
change and the wreck of systems. Society stood here on its base, 
and not on its apex. The people here governed themselves with- 
out the cumbersome intervention of classes, and the fraudulent 
delegation of Emperors and dynasties. They were on the road 
to a millennium and human perfection, as social arrangements can 
bring it about. It was treason to think so grand a work of highest 
art could be "■fragile,"''' like the huge plaster images of a French 
spectacle. Yet such is the unhappy fact. It lies in fragments, 
which tell us how flimsy the material, how vast the internal cav- 



96 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

ities. ISTo man ever yet saw without a pang of sympathy a child 
weeping over a broken pitcher, and w^ are heartily sorry for Mr. 
Bright. The largest and finest toy ever constructed by human 
ingenuity is a wreck, the glue melted, the sawdust run out, the 
wires broken, the colors departed. It is a most lamentable sight. 
At first we were as sorry as Mr. Bright could be ; but we have 
long been convinced that it is no use to cry over spilt milk. The 
tiling is done, and cannot be undone. But not such is Mr. Bright^s 
philosophy. The image sliall be pieced together, and shall be put 
on its legs, and men shall once more crawl in the dust before it. 

THE LAWLESS DESPOTISM OF MR. LINCOLN. 

(From the Loudon Morning Herald of Nov. 5th, 1864.) 

The convention of Chicago tlireatened loudly and boldly enough ; 
and to judge by its confident phrases we might have thought that 
the Northern people were at last resolved to assert their rights with 
the courage worthy of freemen. But all menaces of armed resis- 
tance to unconstitutional violence have melted into smoke. Andrew 
Johnson of Tennessee, the Butler of the West, ordains that no 
citizen shall vote what does not take an oath to oppose the policy 
professed by General JM'Clellan. [How true !] The general 
commanding at Baltimore suppresses, under tlu'eats of military vi- 
olence, the organ of the Democratic party. Mr. Lincoln sustains 
the lawless outrages conunitted by his agents ; and the opposition 
content themselves with angry murmurs. In several instances 
Mr, Lincoln has allowed or ordered the troops to fire upon Dem- 
ocratic meetings, and no resistance has been offered. [The Morn- 
ing Herald strangely forgot to add that Mr. Lincoln ate the bodies 
of those persons at those Democratic meetings whom he allowed 
or ordered the troops to kill ; — a fact the literal truth of which 
can be fully established.] It is plain then, that .violence is to carry 
the day, and that for the first time in modern history athe chief 
magistrate of a democratic republic is to be allowed to enforce his 
own re-election at the point of the bayonet. 

Not by law, but in despite of law, Mr. Lincoln will continue 
President of the United States. His rule will be none the less effec- 
tive because it will be utterly illegal ; and his power will be none 
the less absolute that it rests not on popular suffrage, but on un- 
constitutional violence. The South has little reason to dread his 



None wnatever. 

THE SAME SUBJECT CONCLUDED. 

From the Morning Herald of Nov. 22, 1864. 

In none of these States has election a meaning or an existence ; 
the power is in the hands of military tyrants (who have no more 



GENERAL BRAG AND BLUSTER. 97 

authority to interfere with elections in America than in England, 
but who nevertheless surround every polling-place and enforce 
illegal oaths on every voter,) and the man who cast his vote for 
M'Clellan has done so at the risk of liberty, property, and even 
of life itself. He is an outlaw to whom the ruling authorities will 
give no protection ; whose house may be burnt by Federal soldiers, 
whose cattle may be stolen by his Republican neighbors, whose 
letters will be opened in the post-office, whose family will be 
subject to menace and insult at the hands of Federal officers, and 
whose person may at any moment be carried off to undergo the 
discipline of labor with ball and chain in some military prison, or 
of solitary confinement in a fortress. No wrong done him will be 
punished ; no right claimed by him will be granted. The military 
authorities would drive such a complainant from their doors ; the 
civil power has ceased, for all practical purposes, to exercise any 
functions whatsoever. 

Were the simple flicts of a case ever more plainly 
stated than in that paragraph? The British press is 
strong in its wisdom, strong in its good taste, but strong- 
est in its truthfulness. And now let Munchausen hide his 
diminished head. 



A BRITISH DESCRIPTION OF AN EMINENT AMERICAN. 
(From the London Morning Herald of Nov. 2od. 1864) 

We look, and perceive a community numbering millions in the 
North without a man of genius or of political probity wise or 
strong enough to counsel or to guide them aright. We see a mil- 
itary despotism never yet paralleled in Russia, in which the scep- 
tre clinks the bayonet, and the bayonet sharpens the sceptre, both 
being weapons C)f spoliation and terror to society. Half a million 
of soldiers ravage one of the most generous regions of the globe. 
Future generations — if such are reserved for America — are daily 
shackled with hopeless debt. New England, the Far West, and 
the best old Puritan States, are bleeding to exhaustion. And 
Bishop Simpson's " missionary " is Abraham Lincoln, the mouther 
of stump speeches, the buffoon of the battle-field (after the battle 
is over) the concocter of humorous state documents upon (|uestions 
of av/ful import to mankind, the swindler of the American con- 
stituencies, and the Judas of his country. A constitution violated, 
humanity outraged, Christianity scofi'ed at, war made fiendish — 
a thousand monuments of shame and ruin scattered over the land ; 
and yet the maddened people seem proud of confiding that which 
Bishop Simpson proves their "destiny" to a desi)erado without 
one quality of demeanor or of intellect which would fit him to be 
more than a parish beadle. The only difference is that he can 

5 



98 REBEL BHAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

bluster, can corrupt, can select base Instruments, can be mean 
and violent at the same time, can mojjk and jibe at misery, can 
ordain conscriptions, can play false with liberty, can scourge the 
press which made him what he has been, can gag the mouths of 
his fellow-citizens, and can be the hoot-owl of a: direfid conflict 
spreading its horrors from Canada to the Mexican Gulf, from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, 

The man meant was Abraham Lincoln " 

TWO OPINIONS 

which appeared in the Richmond Correspondence of the 
London Thnes^ December 5th, 1864. 

GENER.IL GPv.AJSTT'S OPINION. 

Information has just reached me of a conversation held last week, 
in which the interlocutors were General Grant and a gentleman 
who returned to Richmond on the 2d inst. from the North, bear- 
ing a letter of introduction to be presented en route from Mr. Se- 
ward to General Grant. It is' well known that the gentleman in 
question (who is a foreigner) is in intimate relations with the Con- 
federate Government. He paints General Grant as a gentleman 
of eminent courtesy, tranquil and dignified in manner, free from 
the proverbial bluster of "his countrymen, and studiously conciha- 
ting in language. [Whoever heard of any one but a Yankee 
blustering? We all know that a Briton never blusters, and espec- 
ially that he's always eminently courteous and studiously conciliating 
in language ; of which this volume is filled with evidence.] He 
pointed out with emphasis that slowly and insidiously the Federal 
army is constantly advancing a step, and that never since the 14th 
of June, Avhen it crossed to the South side of the James, has it 
#made a quarter of a step back^vards. " The end *' he continued, 
" must be the fiill of Richmond. How long it will be before the 
end comes it is impossible for me to say. General Lee knows the 
position of my army to be impregnable on l^oth sides of the river, 
and he will attack on neither. I do not expect the city to be sud- 
denly evacuated, but some day little by little my guns will get 
witliin shelling distance of the capital, and from that hour it is 
merely a question of time. It is probable that if at this stage the 
resistance be obstinate and prolonged, the whole city will be burnt 
to the ground. Anyhow its evacuation by General Lee's army is 
in the end inevitable." 

THE TEVIES CORRESPONDENT'S OPINION. 

K General Grant could be induced to withdraw his eyes for a 
moment from the future of the Confederate States, and to contem- 



GENERAL BRAG AND BLUSTER. 99 

plate the future of his owu country, I woukl ask liim to reflect in 
what estimation he is himself likely to be held by the liekle, many- 
headed beast of the North if he foils to take Richmond in the next 
six months ? Many are the bitter Yankee-haters in this town, who 
wish for their enemies no greater degradation than that, having 
failed to subdue the South, they should find themselves with such 
a satrap as Abraham Lincoln strapped on their back for four years 
to come without hope of relief. Many are the vaticinations al- 
ready heard in Richmond that the second lustrum of Mr. Lincoln, 
commenced in sunshine and tranquillity, and welcomed by a slavish 
and sycophantic community, will go out in storm and whirlwind 
amid execrations and curses. Tliere is in the Arabian Nights no 
tale • so wild and startling as a comparison between the wealth, 
progress, actual and prospective prosperity of the United States in 
1860, and the utter humiliation of the record which they will ex- 
hibit in 1865. 



THE CAPTURE AND SINKING OF THE FLOKIDA. 

The unjustifiable seizure of the rebel cruiser "Florida" 
was condemned at once by every journal of any position 
tion in the United States; it cost Captain Collins his ship 
and an open reprimand before the world. The sinking of 
the vessel in the night by a transport was equally deplored, 
and satisfactory apology and reparation was made to 
Brazil, one of the weakest powers in the world ; yet the 
London Times which thus speaks of the affair in a leading 
article published December 31. 1864. 

Having been sent to American waters, the Florida sunk in 
charge of a prize crew under circumstances which could excite the 
complacent approval of but one community in the civilized world. 
The whole transaction, including an ill-conditioned despatch from 
the Federal Minister in Brazil, must have afforded unqualified sat- 
isfaction to every enemy of the United States. The loss of honor 
is a very heavy price to pay for the destruction of a troublesome 
cruiser. 

The "accident" will impose upon no one. Whether it will 
tend to exalt the character of the American people or that of their 
Government in the estimation of the world is a matter in which the 
majority of the Americans will give themselves no concern. It is 
a" smart Yankee trick;" and in a country where "smartness" 
ranks among the virtues the captain of the clumsy but effective 
transport which did the grateful mischief will doubtless expect to 
share the applause which has already been bestowed upon Captain 



100 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

Collins of the Waschiisett, and to be entertained at a public din- 
ner by the sohd men of New York. "Bhere is but small likelihood 
that he will be disappointed. 

A marked instance this of the courtesy, the candor, and 
of the. respectful consideration which is characteristic of 
every variety of the Anglo Saxon — except the Yankee ! 

THE WJlR, president LINCOLN AND THE NORTHERN PEOPLE. 

(From the Morning Herald of March 4, 1865.) . 

This is the Fourth Day of March, in the year 1865. It is a 
great anniversary for America. It is pencil-marked in the Book 
of her Constitution. Forty-eight hours hence a Senator will move, 
at Washington, that the United States, in gratitude for their pros- 
perity and reputation do constitutionally acknowledge the existence 
of a Supreme Being. Whom, however, do they obey tl»is morn- 
ing ? Once more Abraham Lincoln, who dispenses with all thouglit 
of a conscience or a future, trafficking in blood upon butcherly 
battle-fields, and crowning himself King of the New World 
Golgotha. The fourth day of March is doubly significant in the 
American annals. It brings the hour of the President\s triumph ; 
it was the day when, nearly two centuries ago, multitudes of red 
Indians assembled near the' site of the present city of Philadelphia, 
moving through the woods in vast and dusky masses to ratify a 
treaty with William Penn. There, without banner, or mace, or 
guard, or chariot, the Quaker conciliated the Sachems ; and well 
might the Sachems marvel could they witness the horrors which 
blacken around the heads of their successors in the American land. 
Their own barbarism is ecKpsed ; the civilization which was to 
supplant it is already extinct ; the people talk vainly of God, and 
destroy his works without reason, compunction, or remorse. 
They propose to recognise a Supreme Being ! And they deluge 
the soil with blood. iSTever Avas Chaos more profound. It is a 
huge wandering tumult from the shores of one ocean to the brink 
of another. It is a savage and shocking degeneracy of the human 
race. The world has witnessed spectacles equally startling ; but 
where ? No where, except in China, Hindostan, Egypt, and 
Tartary. Yet this is a people which offers to legalise a belief in 
the Deity ! 

And after years of such talk as this, the Morning Her- 
ald is one of the London journals that wonders why 
there is so much bitterness of feeling in the United States 
against Great Britain. 



GENERAL BRAG AND BLUSTER. 101 

SUPPOSED CONSEQUENCES OF THE ASSASSINATION OF MR. LINCOLN. 
(From the London Times, May 3, 1865.) 

This terrible assassination has now occurred to snap and rend 
asunder all the speculations by which the chances of the future 
might be connected according to the lights before us, with the 
events of the past; and yet it is not certain* that the prospect is 
changed for the worse. It is actually calculated, and perhaps with 
some reason that common grief and common indignation, just as 
they may draw Great Britain and America more closely together, 
may do the same for North and South. Nobody can tell how to 
forecast the possible results of tlie thunderclap. Of all the sur- 
prises of the revolution this is the most overwhelming. Never was 
a crisis so unfathomable in its import, or so completely beyond the 
scope of political divination. 

And yet in spite of the thnnderclap and the unfathom- 
able crisis, events went on the day, the week, the month, 
for three months, after the assassination, just as regularly 
and as safely as they had done before. 



102 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 



CONCLUSION. 

The foregoing- pages leave no doubt as to the opinions 
and the feeling of the great majority of that par^ of the 
British people which is sufficiently intelligent and influ- 
ential to make its voice heard in public, in regard to the 
great struggle which lately convulsed our country. But 
we are not left to inference upon tliis subject. We have 
positive testimony from British sources ; of which the fol- 
lowing paragraph from an article published in the Liver- 
pool Post^ in the beginning of the war, August 28th, 
1881, is an example. 

We have no doubt whatever that the vast majority of the peo- 
ple of this country, certainly of the people of Liverpool, are in fa- 
vor of the cause espoused by the Secessionists. The defeat of the 
Federalists gives- unmixed pleasure, the success of the Confeder- 
ates is ardently hoped, nay, confidently predicted. 

The influence of this feeling upon opinion and in the 
direction of the moral force of the British people, was set 
forth by Mr. Taylor, (who is set down as a " Conserva- 
tive,") in the House of Commons in July 1862. He spoke 
against a motion in favor of mediation, and in the course 
of his speech is reported as saying : — 

He regretted that the honorable gentleman had not accepted 
the advice to withdraw a motion which was without any possible 
advantage, and without any possible object except adding to the 
irritation and bitterness felt with regard to our position upon the 
question. The honorable gentleman said that, from reading the 
papers, he was inclined to think those feelings could not be worse. 
But he differed from him ; and, although he admitted that exag- 
gerated and mistaken opinions prevailed in the North, there was 
a great deal of ground for their bitterness and irritation. [Loud 
and repeated cries of " No."] America had a right to expect 
that^, with our Anti-Slavery opinions, we should have looked with , 
calmer eyes upon the struggle between the North and South. A 
certain portion, and a not uniniluential portion, of the English 



CONCLUSION. 103 

Press has dealt anything but fairly with the Northern States. He 
hardly knew whether upon the merits or demerits of the Northern 
Government this portion of the Press was the most bitter. The 
censure was diverse and inconsistent. First, it Avas said to be ri- 
diculous for a republic to attempt to go to war, and that it could 
not have that individuality of power necessary to enable it to strike 
a blow with effect ; but when the Northern States showed that 
they would put down faction, and even give up individual liberty 
and the liberty of the Press, [hear !] they were called tyrannical and 
dictatorial. One day they were told that they could not carry on 
the war because they could not raise the money, and the next they 
were told tiiat they Avere extravagant and thriftless in tlieir ex- 
penditure. [Hear, hear !] They were denounced because they 
did not pass tax bills to raise revenue, and when the tax bills 
were passed, and the tariff increased, they were blamed for tlieir 
bad policy. [Hear, hear !] Tliey were denounced as hypocriti- 
cal for professing to tight for the slaves, and yet as soon as they 
had shown distinctly the direction of their wishes by prohibiting 
Slavery in the central State of Columbia, they were told that they 
were not dealing justly Avith the State rights of the South. The 
amendment they were now discussing had been once or twice 
changed, and each time it Avas more diluted than before ; but, no 
doubt, the honorable gentleman meant, by meditation, recognition 
of the South — ■ [hear, hear !] — and intervention in the North. 
["No! no!"] 'Intervention Avas only a longer word for war. 
Never Avas so tremendous an issue so easily, so lightly, and Avith 
so slight a recognition of its importance, raised, as had been this 
issue by the honorable membef . [Hear.] It Avould be a fratrici- 
dal war, almost as truly as that Avhich was being fought between 
the South and North — a war which would strike terror into all 
the friends of progress and liberty, and be rejoiced at by all who 
were their foes." 

This is a testimony of a British Conservative. The 
following letter from a British Liberal, points out the 
same obliquity of judgment and unfairness of treatment 
in regard tolhis country and the war. 

FEDERAL CRUELTIES. 

To the Editor of the Daily JVews. 

Sir : The Times, in a tirade against the Federals, says : " This 
war has been carried on with a cruelty Avhich far surpasses anAi^hing 
which can be laid to the charge of England, though the lapse of 
80 years has softened men's manners and has caused humanity to 
be respected even in the camp." 

In our last Avar with America, only fifty years ago, Sir Charles 



104 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

iN'apier witnessed the sack of Little IJampton by the British, and 
he states that on that occasion " every horror was perpetrated 
with impunity — rape, murder, pillage, and not a man was punish- 
ed." 

Further on, in his diary of the same war, he says : ' ' Strong is 
my dislike to what is perhaps a necessary part of our job — viz. 
plundering and ruining the peasantry. We drive all their cattle, 
and of course ruin them. My hands are clean, but it is hateful to 
see the poor Yankees robbed, and to be the robber." 

The Times talks, with the looseness of vague vituperation, about 
'* towns burnt m diabolical wantonness." The burning of all the 
public buildings of Washington by the British is excused by British 
historians on the ground that the war between us and the Americans 
was " almost a civil war." There is only too much force in the 
excuse. 

The standard of the British soldier's conduct, we jnay proudly 
say is on the whole as high in point of humanity as it is in point 
of valor. And judged by that standard, or by any other standard 
of mihtary conduct known to history, the war on the Federal side 
has hitherto been remarkably humane. jSTot a single case of cruelty 
to a prisoner or a non-resistant, so far as I am aware, has yet been 
authenticated. Horrible stories were told of wholesale massacres 
and rape, but they have proved to be utterly unfounded. Gen. 
Butler's "massacres" at Kew Orleans' shrank into the military 
execution of a single Confederate for an outrage to the Federal flag 
which no commander could have^ overlooked, while two soldiers, 
as your correspondent informs us, were executed for maltreatment 
of the inhabitants. The wife of G6n. Beauregard lived in perfect 
security under the government of the Federal commanders. The 
violation of all the ladies in a boarding-school by Mitchell's men, 
with the sanction of their commander, seems to be completely 
disproved ; at all events not an particle of evidence has been adduc- 
ed in support of the charge. There has been great and cruel de- 
struction of property by the Federals on land, and by the Con- 
federates at sea ; and the only difference between the two cases is, 
that the Confederate Government had partly effaced by its general 
impressments, the private character of property within its jurisdic- 
tion, while the private character of the property destroyed by the 
Alabama and her consorts remained uneff'aced. The ravages of 
the Alabama were applauded by the House of Commons, and our 
Southern press was loud in its exultation over the great booty swept 
away from the Federal territory by the invading army of Gen. 
Lee. 

The Times, the other day, published in large type, and in the 
most conspicuous part of the paper the letter of Capt. Semmes 
charging the commander of the Kearsarge with inhumanity in hav- 
ing willfully delayed to send boats to the assistance of the drowning 
men of the Alabama. In the same paper, but in smaU type and 
at the very bottom of the last column, appeared the intelligence 
that sixty-two of the Alabama's men saved by the Kearsarge had 
been landed at Cherbourg. The Captain o£ the Kearsarge, in spite 



CONCLUSION. 105 

of very exasperating circumstances, has treated his prisoners with 
chivah'ous kindness, as the men themselves acknowledge. This 
we see, and we may judge from it of that which we do not see. 

The massacre of the garrison of Fort Pillow by the Confederates, 
after surrender, is, on the other hand, perfectly authenticated. It is 
avov/ed by the Confederates themselves . The Southern journals in this 
country have found themselves compelled, in the interest of mor- 
ality and justice, to pass it over in silence. The Times, however, 
had an allusion to it in a leading article, so worded as to lea,d its 
readers to believe that the atrocity had been committed on the 
Federal side. 

The question whether free political institutions and free Christian- 
ity produce humanity, or the reverse, is one far transcending in 
importance the party question of this war, and hitherto, I venture 
to think, the result of the trial has been satisfactory to friends of 
freedom. I am, &c., 

GOLD^Vm SMITH. 

« 
111 fact, to use the words of a writer in the New York 

Eveyiing Post^ all the articles of the Tim.es^ and it might 
be added, of the Saturday Review^ come to one practical 
conclusion ; the utter incapacity, brutality and folly of 
the Americans of the North. It was lost in admiration 
of the skill of the four European nations which took just 
two years to capture the single fortress of Sebastopol ; it 
had no^terms in which to express its sense of the milita- 
ry energy that enabled Great Britain to put down the re- 
volt of the Sepoys in about twenty-eight months ; and it 
even lauds the success of the French in impoverished and 
distracted Mexico, who in the incredibly short time of 
twenty-three months have marched from Vera Cruz to 
the capital, a distance of one hundred and eighty-five 
miles, taking one fortified town on the way. But for the 
degenerate Yankee's, who have been actually two years 
and a half in blockading five thousand miles of sea-coast, 
defending two thousand miles of menaced frontier, open- 
ing a river a thousand miles long in hostile possession on 
both banks, re-conquering two hundred and fifty thousand 
square miles of territory, and fighting hundreds of bat- 
tles, some of them rivalling Waterloo in the numbers en- 
gaged — it has nothing but contempt. Such mournful. 



106 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER 

proofs of imbecility in the government, of incapacity in 
the generals, of cowardice and la^k of enthusiasm in the 
troops, and of complete moral indifference and corrup- 
tion among the people, provoke its perpetual ire, and the 
choicest language of indignant vituperation. 

Now for all this there was of course a reason. Such 
j^erversity is never spontaneous in a whole community of 
intelligent people ; and the London Times one day naive- 
ly confessed the how, the why, and the wherefore of all 
this misrepresention and abuse. It was done it seems 
from fear and with a motive ; fear of republicanism, and 
in the hope of disgusting the British people with " the 
Great Republic." The Times admitted that we " could 
not be expected to view dismemberment of the Union 
without an effort to avert the loss ; " and also that we had 
not shown any " peculiar incapacity for self-government." 
The following extract will show the gist of the leading 
article in question. 



We consider that the course of events in the Union has been 
perfectly natural, and that Americans have only done what^English- 
men or any other people under the same conditions would have 
done also. ' "^Yhat has so quickened our feelings and made our 
observations so acute is not so much the policy of America in it- 
self, as the prominence which has lately been given to that policy 
by a certain party in this country. For the last ten years we have 
been told, with every circumstance of emphasis and adjui-ation, 
that American institutions were the institutions on which every 
friend of economy, peace and good government should fix his eyes. 
War was distinctly represented as the work of an interested aris- 
tocracy, anxious only for its own advancement. We were assured 
that with an unrestricted suffrage, and with electoral laws under 
which plain working citizens could make their voices heard, the 
old extravagance of a class government would rapidly disappear. 
Debts were contracted and wars were fought to gratifv an aristoc- 
racy subsisting on the taxation of the people. America was the 
model of a better system. There the wisdom and moderation of 
citizens managing their own affairs showed itself in thrift and 
contentment. Such were the points kept obtrusively before us. 
If the reader will refer to any speech of any Manchester orator 
he will find the Government of the United States extravagantly 
eulogized for the very qualities of which it it is now proved to be 



CONCLUSION. 107 

utterly destitute, and the Americans exalted beyond all other 
people on account of gifts which it is plain that they never possess- 
ed. It is this, if the Americans wish to know the truth, which 
points the remarks of Englishmen on their civil war and its inci- 
dents. It is not that they are any worse, or more foolish or more 
intempci-ate than was to be expected under the trials to which 
they have been exposed, but that they have been held up to our 
admiration by a certain party among us as a people in whose 
counsels no intemperance or folly would ever be likely to prevail. 
They suifer from the panegyrics of their friends. Our extreme 
Liberals would have shaped the course of all British legislation 
exclusively by the American pattern; and, owing, indeed, to the 
position of parties, they did actually succeed in imparting now and 
then a transatlantic smack to the policy of the Government. 
When we look, therefore, at the operation of American institu- 
tions, we are contemplating the results of principles which it was 
sought to force upon ourselves. Such a lesson we cannot afford to 
lose. Our criticisms are suggested, not by any joy over American 
troubles, but by feelings of the deepest and most immediate self- 
interest. 



In other words, the people for whom the Times spoke 
found it convenient arid thought it proper to hound on 
the slave-holders' rebellion, and to hoot and howl at the 
government of the people of the Free States, in order to 
head off a political party at home. Well, they kept up a 
good cry, and we trust they are satisfied with the game 
.they caught. 

Another reason for this course of action and state of 
feeling, is given in the following extract from the Liver- 
pool Post of August 28th 1864 ; which also sets forth 
truly how we were unjustly made to suifer for the faults 
of the very men whose cause the British press espoused. 

The Americans have been boastful, offensive, and aggressive. 
Falsely assuming to themselves a power which circumstances have 
shown they did not possess, they have been defiant of the mother 
country, claiming a s uperiority to which they had not the remotest 
title. AH this is true, and aU this was bad ; but it is too readily 
taken for granted that the Northerners did this and not the South- 
erners. Now, it so happens that the Southerners have been most 
to blame in the article of exaggerated presumption. They were 
in power ; they occupied the White House ; they sent Ministers to 
every Court in Europe ; they appointed generals and admirals ; 



108 REBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

they quarrelled with us about Oregon, about the Mosquito territo- 
ry, about rivers running into the Gutf, and about the islands in the 
Gulf. They bearded us whe)i opportunity served, and they beard- 
ed us when we were not exactly in a condition to resent their inso- 
lence. The North may or may not have approved, but the North 
had no power ; it was impotent for good or evil, in a political 
sense, until after the accession to office of Mr. Lincoln. In the 
phraseology of the stable, it is always desirable to put the saddle 
on the right horse ; and at this moment, if people would abstract 
themselves from a prejudice which, after all, has been unjustly ex- 
cited against the North, they would be in a better position to ap- 
preciate the merits of the South. 

Bat beside all these causes of mis understanding, there 
was one not so discreditable to the good sense and the 
candor of our British ill-wishers. They made the great, 
but not unnatural mistake, of forecasting our future by 
what are called the teachings of history ; failing entirely 
to apprehend the vital fact, that the conditions of our po- 
litical existence and our circumstances place iis entirely 
.without the range of any recorded precedent. The fol- 
lowing extract from an article in the Saturday Memeio 
exhibits this erroneous judgment, and the false ground on 
which it is based. 



SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE ANT) NORTHERN LIBERTY. 
(From the Saturday Review of Oct. 1st, 1864.) 

European observers have long wondered at the sanguine hopes 
and eager credulity of the Americans of the Northern States — 
wondered to see the teachings of common sense and the warnings 
of experience alike set at nought, and expectations confidently 
entertained of which results seem to unexcited spectators simply 
impossible. Our Transalantic cousins have appeared to believe 
that the course of human nature would run in new channels in the 
Western hemisphere ; that amity and good-will might be enforced 
at the point of the bayonet, and a Union resting on the voluntary 
copoeration of a" multitude of independent democracies re- 
established by the victory of some over the rest. They have ap- 
parently thought that such a conquest as the greatest military Em- 
pires have never ventured to attempt might be achieved by the 
least warlike of Republics, and that, such conquest accomplished, 
it would leave behind it none of that rankling animosity, that in- 
curable bitterness of feeling, which has in all other cases resulted, 
not only from the subjugation, but even from the hunnliation, of 



CONCLUSION. 1 09 

a proud and higli-spirlted people . And they have so firmly cher- 
ished these ideas themselves as to accuse of ill-will, injustice, and 
obstinate prejudice those to Avhom such hopes appeared altogether 
chimerical. They have resented as a wanton insult, a proof of 
unscrupulous malevolence, the tendency of Englishmen to judge 
the prospects of America by the past experience of Europe, to be- 
lieve that what has been is likely again to be, and that the invari- 
ble course of poHtlcal events is not hkely to be, for the first time, 
reversed in the issue of the present struggle between North and 
South. The Americans and their critics have utterly failed to un- 
derstand each other. We have set down as evidence of simple political 
insanity their confident expectation of results at variance alike with 
historical experience and with the tendencies of human nature. 
We have reckoned it mere madness to believe that the South, 
with its enormous area, its impassable forests, its determined pop- 
ulation, could be thoroughly subdued by any invader, or that the 
subjugation of the South could be otherwise than fatal to the ex- 
istence of a Union of which local self-government and popular sov- 
ereignty are the fundamental principles. The Americans have 
been so confident in the destiny of the Union that they have been 
incapable of understanding an honest and impartial disbelief in its 
renewal. They have been so confident in their own wisdom, pow- 
er, and patriotism, that they have treated the idea of a permanent 
overthrow of their liberties by the encroachments of that tempor- 
ary despotism which the war has created as the wild and empty 
dream of impotent malevolence. We, knowing history better than 
we know Ajnerica, have perhaps been too reliant on the lessons of 
experience. They, comparatively ignorant of any history but their 
own, have been blind to dangers which, however old in the experi- 
ence of mankind, are so new and unforeseen as to seem incredible 
to them. 



We could have afforded at any time to let the asser- 
tion that we are comparatively ignorant of any history 
but our own, pass with a quiet smile at the ignorance and 
rashness of the man who made it ; and as to blindness 
to dangers which are old in the experience of mankind, 
and which threatened the over throw of our liberties, it 
may possibly be safe to say at this moment, that if we 
could not see what did not exist it was hardly our fault, 
and that the wpnderful provision of other people has not 
been so serviceable in discovering for us the fate to 
which we were destined, that we should mourn much over 
our own single sight and simple mind. 



110 EEBEL BRAG AND BRITISH BLUSTER. 

And now that we have thus refreshed our memories of 
the Rebel brag and the British bluster that we heard 
sounding, not only in accord, but in very unison, from 
the beginning even to the end of the rebellion, what 
shall we say and how shall we feel in regard to them ? 
Are not these outpourings infinitely amusing ? Do they 
not move us to laughter rather than to wrath ? There is 
no doubt that they were meant to be insulting and inju- 
rious ; and had our government failed to maintain itself, 
or had our war brought upon us any one of the many mor- 
al, material, and political disasters which were predicted 
for us, these insults might have added a drop of rankling 
venom to the wounds from which we should have suffered. 
But our present position is such that these British and 
Rebel orators and journalists stand before the world in a 
light so ridiculous as to be fit objects of our pity. And a 
moment's calm consideration will convince us that all this 
denunciation and disparagement is not the fruit of mere 
wanton malignity. Malignity will carry individuals, and 
even small bodies of men very far; but it will not lead great 
communities and the leading minds in great communities 
so far as to make them reckless equally of their reputa- 
tion for good sense and of their interest. The truth is 
that all this offensive and absurd talk had its origin in ig- 
norance, — - ignorance which begot both prejudice and fear. 
ISTot fear in the nature of personal cowardice, or dread of 
our power; for there are probably no people in the 
world who have more personal courage or national hardi- 
hood than the British j^eople, or our own country- 
men in the late Slave States. The fear in question was 
not fear of us, but dread of our influence, of our example, 
and of our policy. The governing classes in Great Bri- 
tain particularly feared, as the London Times virtually 
confesses in an article quoted above, that the effect of the 
continual jijrosperity of this Republic would be to deprive 
them of some of their privileges, to wrest from them 



CONCLUSION. Ill 

some of their power, and distribute it among their peo- 
ple. They feared, too, that if we continued to increase in 
wealth and strength we should use our gigantic power 
after a giant's fashion, rudely, recklessly, and would keep 
the world in turmoil. How unfounded this latter fear was, 
we all know. It was the result of sheer ignorance and j^reju- 
dice. The apprehension of the influence which the spec- 
tacle of the working of republican institutions, as we 
manage them, might have upon the people of Europe was 
bettea- founded. But now that we have had our lauo^h at 
this nonsense, and have seen that it really was the result 
of ignorance and vague apprehension, as appears by al- 
most every line of it, shall we not be wiser and worthier 
of our position and our strength, if instead of laying it 
up against our baffled ill-wishers, we pass it by as the 
natural consequence of their incompetence to grasp the 
situation which we have mastered, and think, of it, 
if we think of it at all^ with serene indifference and 
good-nature ? 



THE END. 



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